UC-NRLF 


B    3    2E3    371 


,^i 


1 


LIBRARY 

OF    THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 
Cl(us 


W^M': 


i 


[ 

1 

y  ■ 
\- 

\ 

\: 

\' 
ii 

\ ', 

! 
1 

.1  L-:^ 


f 

WOKKING    PEOPLE 


AND    THEIR    EMPLOYERS. 


BY 


WASHINGTON    GLADDEN. 


NEW   YORK: 

FUNK  &  WAGNALLS  COMPANY, 

LONDON  AND  TORONTO. 

1894. 


^p&' 


'>: 


GEM/iAL 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  In  the  year  1885,  by 

FUNK  &  WAGNALLS, 

In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress  at  Washington,  D.  C. 


PREFACE. 


I'liE  reader  of  these  chapters  will  soon  discover  that  they 
were  written  with  an  audience  in  view,  and  will  infer  that  they 
were  spoken  from  the  pulpit. 

It  is  not  unlikely  that  some  readers  may  pronounce  discus- 
sions such  as  these  quite  too  secular  for  Sunday  and  the  Chhrch  ; 
but  the  lawfulness  of  doing  good  on  the  Lord's  day  is  not  an 
open  question ;  and  the  Christian  who  does  not  feel  the  need  of 
trying  to  do  good  in  this  way,  who  does  not  see  the  importance 
of  bringing  the  truth  of  the  New  Testament  to  bear  directly 
upon  the  matters  now  in  dispute  between  labor  and  capital,  is 
one  with  whom  I  do  not  care  to  argue.  Now  that  slavery  is  out 
of  the  way,  the  questions  that  concern  the  welfare  of  our  free 
laborers  are  coming  forward  ;  and  no  intelligent  man  needs  to 
be  admonished  of  their  urgency.  They  a'-*^  not  only  questions 
of  economy,  they  are  in  a  large  sense  moral  questions ;  nay, 
they  touch  the  very  marrow  of  that  .  gion  of  good-will  of 
which  Christ  was  the  founder.  It  is  plain  that  the  pulpit  must 
have  something  to  sa}-  about  them. 

If  these  lectures  had  been  intended  for  students  of  political 
economy,  some  of  the  things  here  said  might  have  been  taken 

\  lO-SGlO 


4  Preface. 

for  granted  ;  but  manj^  of  those  to  whom  they  were  spoken  were 
mechanics  and  operatives,  who  could  not  be  familiar  with  all 
the  current  treatises  on  social  science,  and  who  therefore  were 
not  offended  by  instruction  of  a  somewhat  elementary  character. 
I  think  I  know  my  audience  pretty  well.  The  greater  part  of 
my  life  has  been  spent  among  working  people,  in  working  with 
them,  or  in  working  for  them.  I  count  among  them  some  of  ni}- 
most  valued  friends  ;  I  know  their  ways  of  living  and  of  think- 
ing ;  and  I  have  tried  to  make  these  discussions  intelligible  and 
helpful  to  them. 

That  any  of  the  questions  raised  get  their  final  answer  in  this 
book,  I  am  not  vain  enough  to  imagine  ;  but  I  hope  that  it  may 
help  a  little  towards  the  understanding  of  some  of  them. 

North  Church  Study, 
Springfield,  Mass. 


CONTENTS. 


-♦- 


I. 

PAGE. 

Duty  and  Discipline  of  Work 9 

II. 
Labor  and  Capital 30  i/ 

m. 

Hard  Times,  and  How  to  Ease  Them 52 

IV. 
Rising  in  the  World .74 

V. 

The  Household  and  the  Home       .....     94 

VI. 

Society  and  Societies .  124 

VII. 
Strong  Drink 145 

vni. 

The  Duties  of  Employers        .......  106  •^ 

IX. 
The  Future  of  Labor 187 

Appendix 213 

5 


WORKING    PEOPLE 


AND  THEIR  EMPLOYERS. 


\BR 
or  the' 

^N/VERSiTY 


DUTY  AND  DISCIPLINE  OF  WOEK. 

To  WORKING  people  and  their  employers  these  lec- 
tures are  addressed  ;  not  to  slaves  and  then-  masters  ; 
not  to  toilers  and  pleasure-seekers ;  not  to  workers 
atid  shirkers.  It  is  not  assumed  that  employers,  or 
capitalists,  or  any  other  class  of  able-bodied  adult 
persons  in  the  community,  are  absolved  from  the 
duty  of  labor.  The  law  which  Paul  laid  down  to 
the  Corinthians,  "If  any  man  will  not  work,  neither 
shall  he  eat,"  is  morally  binding  upon  Americans  as 
well  as  Greeks.  The  fourth  commandment  is  gener- 
ally quoted  as  if  it  had  exclusive  reference  to  the 
observance  of  one  day  in  seven  as  a  day  of  rest ;  but 
it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  work  is  commanded  by 
it  just  as  explicitly.  "Remember  the  sabbath  day 
to  keep  it  holy.     Six  days  shall  thou  labor  a)id  do  all 


lO        Working  People  and  their  Employers. 


thy  workj  but  the  seventh  is  the  sabbath  of  the  Lord 
thy  God;  in  it  thou  shalt  not  do  any  work."  Resting 
on  the  seventh  day  is  no  more  distinctly  required 
than  working  on  the  other  six  days.  It  is  not  "  Six 
days  thou  may  est  labor,"  but  "  Six  days  thou  shall 
labor." 

Thus  in  this  compendious  statement  of  moral  prin- 
ciples given  to  the  Hebrews  at  the  beginning  of  their 
national  existence,  and  intended  to  serve  not  only  for 
the  Hebrews,  but  for  all  races  as  a  practical  and  suffi- 
cient rule  of  life,  we  find  work  enjoined  as  a  duty ; 
and  no  hint  is  given  of  any  classes  who  are  exempted 
from  the  command.  The  Ten  Commandments  are 
sometimes  said  to  be  the  summary  statement  of  the 
moral  law :  that  which  is  required  by  them  is  moral ; 
that  which  is  forbidden  by  them  is,  in  the  most  exact 
sense  of  the  word,  immoral.  Idleness  is  therefore 
immoral ;  and  whoever,  man  or  woman,  is  living 
without  occupation,  is  leading  a  life  of  immorality. 
A  lazy  man  is  not  a  moral  man. 

Not  enough  has  been  made  of  this  clause  *n  the 
commandment.  We  have  often  proved  that  idleness 
is  inexpedient,  that  it  is  wasteful,  that  it  relaxes  the 
vigor  of  the  body  and  the  mind,  that  it  is  a  devia- 
tion from  the  path  in  which  He  walked  who  said, 
"  My  Father  worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work;  "  but  we 
have   not  sufficiently  emphasized  the   fact  that  it  is 


The  Duty  a^td  Disciplme  of  Work,  1 1 

an  express  transgression  of  the  moral  law,  —  in  other 
words  a  sin,  put  by  the  divine  Lawgiver  into  the 
same  category  with  image-worship  and  blasphemy, 
and  theft  and  murder  and  impurity,  and  sharing 
with  these  sins  in  the  displeasure  of  God. 

It  hardly  needs  to  be  said  that  this  rule  of  life,  like 
every  other,  has  its  exceptions.  Some  persons  are 
lawfully  exempted  from  labor.  The  sick,  the  aged 
and  infirm,  infants,  and  the  imbecile  are  not  required 
to  work.  Ability  always  limits  obligation.  What- 
ever theories  the  theologians  may  have  about  it, 
God  never  expects  of  any  one  impossibilities. 
Young  persons  pursuing  courses  of  education  are 
also  partial  exceptions  to  this  rule.  They  are 
preparing  for  work.  It  is  not,  however,  well  for 
them  to  be  entirely  relieved  of  labor.  It  is  vastly 
better  for  their  minds  and  for  their  bodies,  that  they 
should  have  some  regular  duties  to  perform  outside 
the  routine  of  school  life. 

I  can  think  of  no  other  limitations  to  the  positive 
command,  "Six  days  shalt  thou  labor."  And  it  is 
high  time  that  not  only  the  dignity  but  the  duty  of 
work  were  enforced  upon  the  men  and  women  of 
our  day.  We  had  a  battle  to  fight  with  the  fixlse 
philosophy  of  a  former  generation,  in  order  to  main- 
tain the  dignity  of  work.  There  were  those  who 
insisted  that  labor  was  dishonorable  and  degrading ; 


12        Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

that  the  laboring  classes  ought  to  be  servile  classes. 
That  fallacy  we  have  pretty  effectually  exploded, 
though  it  took  not  a  little  gunpowder  to  do  it.  It 
is  now  generally  admitted  in  all  parts  of  the  land 
that  labor  is  honorable ;  that  men,  at  any  rate,  are 
not  disgraced  by  it,  however  it  may  be  with  women ; 
that  if  any  one  chooses  to  work,  rather  than  live  on 
the  earnings  of  others,  rather  than  beg  or  swindle 
or  steal,  it  is  nothing  against  him.  So  far,  so  good. 
But  there  is  another  step  to  take.  Now  we  must 
make  it  equally  clear  that  labor  is  not  optional  but 
imperative;  that  it  is  imperative,  too,  upon  all  men 
and  all  women  alike  that  have  sound  minds  and 
sound  bodies ;  that  it  is  not  only  respectable  to 
work,  but  that  it  is  not  respectable  to  be  idle. 

From  the  sentence  pronounced  upon  Adam  after 
his  transgression  in  Eden,  '^  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face 
thou  shalt  eat  thy  bread,"  it  has  sometimes  been 
inferred  that  labor  was  the  penalty  of  sin ;  that  if  it 
had  not  been  for  the  fall  we  should  have  subsisted 
somehow  without  work.  A  most  mischievous  and 
unwarrantable  inference !  Doubtless  the  tendency 
of  moral  evil  is  to  make  work  more  difficult,  hazard- 
ous, and  painful ;  doubtless  the  ^'  whole  creation 
groancth  and  travaileth  "  under  its  burdens  of  toil 
as  it  would  not  have  done  if  man  had  never  sinned ; 
but  if  there  were  not,  and  never  had  been,  moral 


The  Duty  and  Disciplijic  of  IVurk.  i  3 

evil  in  the  world,  there  would  still  be  need  of  labor. 
For  sinless  as  well  as  for  sinful  beings,  work  is  the 
indispensable  condition  of  development.  Why,  if  you 
go  back  to  the  story  of  Genesis  for  your  theories  on 
this  subject,  please  to  remember  that,  before  the  fall, 
*'  The  Lord  God  took  the  man,  and  put  him  into  the 
Garden  of  Eden  to  dress  it  and  to  keep  z^."  No, 
work  is  no  part  of  the  curse.  It  is  part  of"  the 
original  divine  constitution.  Laziness,  —  that  is  tlie 
curse.  The  terrible  inertia  of  body  aaC;<^til,  the 
unwillingness  to  labor,  which  makes  some  men  pau- 
pers, and  some  panders,  and  some  swindlers,  and 
some  thieves,  —  that  is  the  result  of  the  fall,  one  of 
its  worst  and  bitterest  results. 

By  work,  of  course,  I  do  not  mean  manual  work 
exclusively.  Hand  work  is  just  as  honorable  as 
brain  work,  and  no  more  honorable.  There  is  an 
infinite  variety  of  work  to  be  done,  some  of  which 
requires  almost  no  muscular  exertion,  some  of  which 
requires  almost  no  thought,  some  of  which  calls  for 
a  combination  of  the  powers  of  the  mind  with  the 
powers  of  the  body.  And  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
the  tendency  is  to  substitute  mind  for  muscle  in 
the  various  industrial  operations  of  the  period.  In 
nearly  every  trade  and  calling,  many  things  are  now 
rlone  by  machinery  that  were  once  done  by  hand ; 
and  machinery  is  mind  power  substituted  for  muscle 


14        Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

power.  A  machine  is  a  contrivance  of  the  human 
intellect  by  which  some  natural  force  or  other  — 
steam,  or  falling  water,  or  wind,  or  compressed  air, 
or  electricity,  or  chemical  re- action  —  is  so  directed 
that  it  does  the  work  once  done  by  muscular  strength 
and  skill.  Yast  numbers  of  our  laboring  people  of 
both  sexes  now  find  their  occupation  in  watching 
and  tending  these  machines.  Some  manual  labor  ^s 
required,  but  the  task  is  lighter.  Doubtless  these 
labor-saviifg  machines  will  be  constantly  increasing 
in  number  and  improving  in  efficiency,  and  much  of 
the  work  that  is  now  done  by  hand  will  be  done 
twenty  years  hence  by  machinery. 

In  this  tendency  we  see  the  working  out  of  a 
principle  which  is  fundamental  in  the  plan  of  the 
Creator,  —  namely,  that  the  natural  comes  first,  and 
afterward  the  spiritual.  There  is  a  constant  move- 
ment toward  the  substitution  of  intelligence  for  brute 
force.  The  cruder  and  coarser  methods  and  pro- 
cesses are  gradually  supplanted  by  those  more  intel- 
lectual. Mind  steadily  gains  on  muscle,  and  will 
continue  to  gain  until  the  spiritual  or  immaterial  part 
of  man  shall  obtain  a  complete  ascendency  over  the 
natural  forces  of  the  world  in  which  he  lives. 

This  is  certainly  part  of  the  divine  plan ;  and  work- 
ing-men should  understand  it,  and  cease  to  quarrel 
with  it.     The  steam-engine,  the  spinning-jenny,  the 


The  Duty  and  Discipli7ie  of  Work,  15 


power-loom,  the  power-press,  the  sewing-mji^hine, 
all  these  mechanical  devices  by  which  labor  is  saved 
and  production  increased,  are  provided  for  in  God's 
design.  They  are  part  of  his  great  work  of  develop- 
ment by  which  he  is  carrying  the  race  forward  to  its 
perfect  destiny.  They  are  not,  as  some  working-men 
seem  inclined  to  think,  inventions  of  the  Devil :  they 
are  the  handiwork  of  God,  just  as  really  as  the 
flowers  and  the  grains  that  grow  on  the  face  of  the 
earth,  or  the  coal  measures  that  are  hidden  beneath 
its  surface. 

I  have  sometimes  seen  the  Scripture  text,  "These 
are  parts  of  His  ways,"  inscribed  upon  the  walls  of  a 
cabinet  of  minerals  or  a  museum  of  natural  history ; 
but  it  might  just  as  reverently  be  written  over  the 
entrance  to  the  machine-room  of  the  American  Insti- 
tute, where  the  thoughts  of  God  unfold  themselves 
in  the  contrivances  of  men. 

The  men  of  the  Bible  were  not  all  specially  in- 
spired men.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that 
Abraham  or  Jacob  was  inspired  in  any  other  sense 
than  you  or  I  may  be.  But  there  were  a  few  men 
to  whom  (the  record  tells  us)  God  did  give  a  special 
inspiration.  Among  them  was  Bezaleel,  the  son  of 
Uri,  the  son  of  Hur,  of  the  tribe  of  Judah.  "  See,  I 
have  called  him  byname,"  says  Jehovah;  "and  I 
have  filled  him  with  the  spirit  of  God  in  wisdom  and 


1 6         Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

in  understanding  and  in  knowledge."  And  wheat 
was  Bezaleel  to  do  with  this  divine  gift  ?  Was  he 
to  utter  prophecies,  to  sing  psalms,  to  write  laws? 
Not  at  all.  He  was  "  to  devise  cunning  works,  to 
work  in  gold  and  in  silver  and  in  brass,  and  in  cutting 
of  stones  to  set  them,  and  in  carving  of  timber ;  to 
work  in  all  manner  of  workmanship."  It  is  possible, 
then,  that  God's  thought  may  express  itself  in  cun- 
ning works  in  wood  or  iron.  It  did  so  express  itself 
in  the  olden  time,  and  why  not  now  ?  True,  the 
building  on  which  this  man  Bezaleel  was  thus  divinely 
qualified  to  work  was  the  tabernacle ;  but  do  you  not 
think  that  God  needs  inspired  workmen  in  building 
the  grander  temple  of  modern  civilization?  and  do 
you  not  suppose  that  now,  as  in  the  olden  time,  those 
who  fashion  this  grand  structure  are  working  under 
his  guidance  ? 

It  is  not  then,  working-men,  a  careless  Providence, 
or  a  malevolent  Providence,  that  fills  your  work- 
shops with  these  facile  instruments  of  labor.  The 
selfishness  of  men  may  have  had  much  to  do  with 
producing  them ;  but  the  selfishness  of  men  is  made 
in  this  matter  as  in  others  to  praise  God,  and  to  fur- 
ther the  designs  of  an  infinite  benevolence.  And  I 
should  like  to  show  you,  if  I  can,  how  these  machines, 
which  seem  on  a  nan'ow  view  to  be  your  enemies, 


The  Duty  ami  Discipline  of  Work,  i  7 

are    really   working    not  only   for   the   good    of    the 
world  as  a  whole,  but  for  your  good. 

It  was  no  wonder,  at  the  outset,  that  men  who  had 
had  no  wide  range  of  observation,  and  who  were 
unfamiliar  with  the  hiws  of  political  economy,  should 
fail  to  understand  that  labor-saving  machines  help  the 
laborer.  The  obvious  fact  was  that  there  was  a  ma- 
chine that  did  the  work  of  two  or  perhaps  of  ten 
men:  was  it  not  certain,  that,  if  the  machine  were 
allowed  to  work,  it  would  throw  the  one  or  the  nine, 
not  required  to  operate  it,  out  of  employment  ?  That 
was  the  apparent  consequence ;  but  it  must  at  length 
begin  to  appear,  even  to  ignorant  men,  that  a  great 
many  elements  have  to  be  taken  into  the  account  in 
solving  such  a  problem  as  this.  Other  results  arise 
from  the  employment  of  such  machinery,  which  are 
not  so 'apparent,  at  first  sight,  and  which  are  yet  very 
important  to  the  working-man. 

In  the  first  place,  machinery  tends  to  cheapen  the 
commodities  that  working-men  must  buy.  The  prices 
of  nearly  all  the  articles  consumed  by  the  laborer 
are  greatly  reduced  by  the  use  of  machinery. 

Moreover,  the  machines,  by  lowering  the  price  of 
the  commodities  they  produce,  tend  powerfully  to 
increase  the  demand  for  these  commodities,  and 
greatly  to  stimulate  production. 

Take,  for  example,  the  trade  with  which  I  am  most 


1 8         Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

familiar,  —  printing.  When  the  machine -press  was 
introduced,  it  naturally  appeared  to  the  printers  that 
some  of  them  would  lose  their  employment  by  reason 
of  it;  but  what  has  been  the  result?  The  imp;oved 
facilities  for  printing  have  so  increased  the  demand 
for  printed  matter,  by  cheapening  it,  and  putting  it 
within  the  reach  of  a  larger  number  of  readers,  that 
now,  with  the  machines  in  use,  many  more  persons 
are  employed  at  printing  than  formerly,  —  a  grealer 
number,  I  think,  in  proportion  to  the  whole  popula- 
tion.    The  work  is  lighter,  and  the  wages  are  better. 

The  same  thing  is  true  of  every  other  mechanical 
trade.  I  do  not  think  it  is  possible  to  mention  any 
branch  of  production  in  which  the  use  of  labor-saving 
machinery  has  not  increased  instead  of  diminishing 
the  number  of  laborers,  and  raised  instead  of  redu 
ci ng  the  wages  of  labor.  Since  I  was  a  farmer's  boy, 
twenty  years  ago,  a  great  deal  of  farm  machinery 
has  come  into  general  use :  farm- work  is  much  lighter 
than  it  used  to  be,  and  the  wages  paid  to  laborers  are 
much  higher  than  they  used  to  be ;  not  only  posi- 
tively but  relatively  higher.  The  average  price  of 
a  day's  labor  on  the  farm  will  buy  more  of  the  neces- 
saries of  life  to-day  than  it  would  twenty  years  ago. 

>^t  is  true  that  the  gains  which  have  come  to  work- 
men through  the  introduction  of  machinery  have 
been  slow.     They  have   not  kept  pace  with  the  in- 


The  Duty  and  Discipline  oj    Work,  19 

crease  of  wealth  ;  nor  will  they,  until  the  machines  are 
owned,  as  well  as  operated,  by  the  workmen.  Nev- 
ertheless machinery  has  already  brought  a  positive 
pecuniary  advantage  to  the  laboring  classes;  and, 
under  a  better  organization  of  labor,  it  is  destined  to 
secure  to  them  far  greater  benefits. 

Thers  is  one  other  result  of  the  introduction  of 
machinery  to  which  I  wish  to  allude ;  that  is  the  intel- 
lectual improvement  of  workmen.  It  takes  more 
intelligence  to  operate  a  machine  than  it  does  to 
handle  a  tool.  There  are  principles  involved  in  the 
construction  of  the  machine  which  the  operator  must 
understand  more  or  less  clearly  or  he  cannot  manage 
it.  It  is  true  that  some  men  work  all  their  lives  with 
machinery  without  acquiring  any  very  satisfactory 
knowledge  of  the  principles  on  which  it  is  con- 
structed: nevertheless  some  ideas  are  picked  up  by 
the  dullest ;  and  the  general  result  is  a  considerable 
increase  of  the  knowledge,  and  a  corresponding  de- 
velopment of  the  mental  powers,  of  the  workmen. 

For  this  reason  machinery  was  introduced  into  the 
South  to  a  very  limited  extent  before  the  destruction 
of  slavery.  It  would  have  been  difficult,  no  doubt, 
to  teach  the  slaves  to  use  machinery  ;  but  it  was  not 
so  much  the  difficulty  as  the  danger  of  the  undertak 
ing  that  kept  the  masters  from  it.  It  would  not  have 
been  easy  to  initiate  Sambo  into  the  mysteries  of  the 


20         Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

mowing-machine  or  the  power-loom ;  but  he  would 
have  comprehended  them  at  length,  and  along  with 
them  several  other  things  that  it  was  not  safe  for  him 
to  know.  You  cannot  keep  men  in  servitude  who 
work  with  machinery.  The  intelligence  that  suffices 
for  such  work  is  an  intelligence  that  will  forgci  its 
own  weapons  of  deliverance  from  bondage.  As  Prof 
Cairnes  of  London  clearly  pointed  out  in  his  masterly 
work  on  the  causes  of  the  late  war  in  this  country, 
the  only  hope  of  keeping  the  blacks  in  subjection 
lay  in  the  policy  of  the  masters,  —  a  policy  in  most 
cases  instinctively  rather  than  deliberately  chosen,  — 
of  keeping  them  employed  with  the  rudest  kind  of 
tools,  in  doing  the  roughest  sort  of  work. 

While  it  is  true  that  any  kind  of  work  is  better  for 
the  mind  than  idleness,  it  is  also  true  that  the  work 
which  demands  the  most  skill  and  thought  is  the 
work  which  most  rapidly  develops  the  mind ;  and 
hence  the  improvement  of  implements  and  machinery 
is  one  powerful  means  not  only  of  ameliorating  the 
physical  condition  of  the  laboring  man,  but  also  of 
cultivating  his  intellect.  It  is  thought  kat  educates, 
—  the  contact  with  quick  and  fertile  mind ;  and  it 
matters  not  whether  this  contact  be  produced  by  a 
voice  or  a  book  or  a  machine:  the  result  is  the 
same. 

I  am  looking  for  the  time,  -  -  though  doubtless  I 


The  Duty  a^id  Discipline  of  Work. 


shall  never  see  it, — when  the  forces  of  nature  shall  be 
so  broken  to  the  will  of  man  that  the  necessaries  of 
life  will  be  easily  gained,  and  along  with  them  such 
abundant  instruction  in  the  true  methods  of  liviiig, 
such  ample  light  in  the  ways  in  which  workmen  now 
walk  darkly,  that  want  and  strife  will  be  almost 
unknown.  By  and  by  the  world  will  be  not  only 
the  storehouse  of  an  unfailing  bounty,  and  the  temple 
of  a  pure  religion,  but  the  school  of  a  divine  wisdom 
to  all  mankind.  While,  therefore,  I  do  not  despise 
manual  labor,  I  look  to  see  its  burdens  lightened 
every  year,  and  hope  for  the  time  when  the  benumb- 
ing toils  that  now  dull  the  faculties  of  so  many 
millions  shall  give  place  to  a  freer  life,  to  labors  less 
painful,  to  activities  that  shall  be  full  of  zest  for  the 
workman. 

This  state  of  things,  when  it  comes,  will  be  in  no 
small  measure  the  direct  result  of  the  introduction  of 
those  machines  for  the  increase  of  production  and 
the  relief  of  labor  of  winch  I  have  sometimes  heard 
my  friends  among  the  working-men  bitterly  com- 
plain. These  complaints  were  not  unnatural ;  but 
perhaps  a  careful  examination  of  the  whole  subject 
will  enable  us  to  see  that  they  are  most  unwise. 
That  Divine  Providence  under  whose  eye  all  these 
industrial  revolutions  are  going  on,  cares  for  the 
W(n'king-man  as  much  ;is   for  the   capitalist      Christ 


22         Working  People  and  their  Employers, 


himself  was  a  carpenter's  son,  was  he  not  ?  Dc 
you  think  that  God  forgets  you  ?  Do  you  believe 
that  that  ''increasing  purpose"  of  his  which  "runs 
through  all  the  ages,"  widening  the  thoughts  of  men 
and  lifting  up  their  lives,  leaves  you  out  altogether  ? 
No,  my  friends,  that  cannot  be.  The  forces  of  the 
world,  in  their  full  scope,  are  working  to  your  good. 
And  if  you  will  quietly  sit  down  and  count  not  only 
the  hardships  of  your  lot,  but  your  advantages  and 
your  gains,  I  believe  that  you  will  find  it  so. 

But  leaving  aside  these  larger  results  for  which 
we  look  in  the  future,  and  these  hopeful  assurances 
which  we  draw  from  the  Christian  religion  itself 
concerning  the  lot  of  the  working-man,  is  there  con- 
veyed in  that  religion  any  truth  that  touches  the 
present  life  and  the  daily  labor  of  our  working 
people?  Has  Christianity  any  thing  to  say  about 
work  and  how  to  do  it  ^ 

It  would  be  strange  if  it  had  not.  Christ  was  not 
only  known  to  men  as  the  carpenter's  son  ;  he  was 
himself  a  carpenter.  Doubtless  he  learned  the  trade 
of  his  reputed  father,  and  worked  at  it  till  he  was 
thirty  years  old.  Of  his  chosen  apostles,  several 
were  fishermen ;  nearly  all  of  them,  probably,  were 
workmen  in  some  humble  calling.  There  is  a  little 
doubt  about  Judas.  Of  his  antecedents  we  know 
absolutely  nothing ;  it  would  seem,  however,  that  hia 


The  Duty  and  Discipline  of  Work.  23 

tniiniiig  must  have  been  that  of  a  financier,  rathei 
than  that  of  a  laborer.  But  since  the  Founder  of 
Christianity,  and  most  of  its  first  teachers,  belonged 
without  doubt  to  the  working  classes,  we  should 
naturally  expect  that  it  would  have  something  to  say 
about  the  duties  of  working  people.  We  are  not 
disa|)pointed  in  this  expectation.  The  utterances  of 
the  New  Testament  on  this  subject  are  not,  it  is  true, 
very  radical  when  compared  with  the  modern  type 
of  radicalism;  no  attempt  is  made  to  disturb  the 
rights  of  property,  or  to  array  the  different  classes  in 
society  against  each  other.  In  all  such  conflicts  as 
these  Christ  declined  to  have  any  part.  Once,  when 
a  man  came  to  him  and  said,  "  Master,  speak  to  my 
brother  that  he  divide  the  inheritance  with  me,"  he 
answered  sternly,  ''  Man,  who  made  me  a  judge  or  a 
divider  over  you  ? "  And  then,  turning  to  those 
round  about  him,  he  said,  "  Take  heed  and  beware 
of  covetousness,  for  a  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the 
abundance  of  the  things  which  he  possesseth."  When  i 
any  quarrel  was  going  on  about  positions  or  posses- 
sions, Christ  took  part  with  neither  side  ;  he  would 
not  give  his  countenance  to  any  sclicme  for  settling 
by  force  or  by  law  the  relations  between  liostilo 
classes :  what  he  struck  at  was  that  spirit  of  covet-  ^ 
ousness  which  is  the  root  of  every  such  disagreement, 
which  makes  the  employer    extortionate    and    rnpa 


24         Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

cious,  and  the  workman  indolent  and  greedy.  When 
that  is  once  exterminated  from  the  hearts  of  men 
there  will  be  no  more  strife  between  capital  and 
labor ;  and  to  exterminate  it  was  the  work  that 
Christ  came  to  do. 

Nevertheless  the  duties  of  working-men  are  re- 
ferred to  incidentally  more  than  once  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament. I  shall  mention  but  one  such  passage.  The 
words  are  from  the  pen  of  St.  Paul,  who,  though  a 
man  of  fine  education  and  large  experience  of  the 
world,  was  a  practical  mechanic.  His  home  was  in 
Cilicia,  a  province  of  Asia  Minor,  which  was  famous 
in  those  days  for  its  manufactures  of  hair-cloth,  the 
substance  of  which  tents  are  made.  He  was  a  tent- 
maker  by  trade ;  and  the  New  Testament  tells  us  that, 
when  he  was  on  his  missionary  tours,  he  sometimes 
supported  himself  by  working  at  his  trade  rather 
than  "be  chargeable  to  any  "  of  those  to  whom  he 
was  preaching.  Paul  knew,  therefore,  something  of 
the  questions  in  which  working-men  are  interested ; 
and  he  has  something  to  say  to  them  in  nearly  all  of 
his  epistles.  In  his  letter  to  the  Christians  at  Colosse, 
he  addresses  various  classes  of  persons,  and  gives 
them  counsel  about  their  daily  lives,  "  Whatsoever 
ye  do,  do  it  heartily,  as  unto  the.  Lord  and  not  unto 
men."  These  words  are  addressed  \n  servants,  and 
the  servants  to  whom  they  are  addressed  were  slaves. 


The  Duty  and  Dkciplmc  of  Work.  25 


And  Paul  counsels  them  to  do  their  .vork  heartily. 
If  such  counsel  is  good  for  a  slave,  how  much  better 
is  it  for  a  freeman  !  If  a  slave  ought  to  put  his  soul 
into  his  work.  —  for  this  is  what  Paul's  expression 
means,  —  how  much  more  should  a  freeinan ! 

"  Whatsoever  ye  do,  do  it  from  the  soul,"  says  the 
great  apostle  to  the  Colossian  slaves.  This  means  a 
little  more  than  that  it  should  be  done  willingly. 
The  soul  is  the  man  :  it  is  the  intelligence  and  the 
conscience,  as  well  as  the  affections.  And  Paul 
seems  to  mean  that  men  who  are  called  to  any  work 
ought  to  do  it  intelligently  and  conscientiously  as 
well  as  cheerfully. 

Intelligently,  1  say.  There  is  room  for  the  exer- 
cise of  intelligence  in  every  avocation. 

"Pray,  how  do  you  mix  your  colors?  "  queried  the 
young  painter  of  the  old  artist.  "  With  brains,  sir," 
was  the  short  but  sufficient  answer.  There  is  no 
product  of  our  hands  with  which  brains  may  not  be 
profitably  mixed.     Give  your  mind  to  your  calling. 

All  work  is  art.  There  are  artists  in  dirt,  at  whose 
feet  I  would  fain  sit  in  these  days  of  garden-making ; 
rude  men,  who  with  shovel  and  rake  will  slope  a 
bank  or  trace  a  winding  walk  in  a  manner  wliolly 
beyond  my  power  of  imitation.  There  are  artists  in 
dry  goods:  look  at  the  pictures  they  make  for  you  in 
the    show  windows!      There    arc    artists    in     wood. 


26        Working  People  and  their  E77tployers, 

whom  men  commonly  call  carpenters ;  and  artists  in 
iron,  generally  known  as  blacksmiths,  —  men  whose 
handiwork  is  always  shapely,  symmetrical,  beautiful. 
There  are  artists  in  household  work;  indeed,  the 
very  finest  and  most  delicate  art  is  all  the  while  dis- 
playing itself  in  the  arrangement  and  adornment  of 
our  houses.  In  short,  there  is  an  ideal  perfection 
which  ought  to  be  striven  after  in  our  mechanical 
and  domestic  labor  as  really  as  in  what  are  called  the 
fine  arts.  God  has  made  every  thing  beautiful  in  its 
time.  I  suppose  that  he  takes  pleasure  in  his  handi- 
work, not  only  because  of  its  fitness,  but  because  of 
its  beauty.  Is  there  any  reason  why  you  should  not 
take  pleasure  in  your  handiwork  for  the  same 
reason  ? 

Conscience,  too,  ought  to  be  put  into  work.  This 
world  would  be  a  great  deal  better  world  to  live  in 
than  it  is,  if  a  little  more  conscience  were  put  into 
our  carpentry  and  our  mason-work  and  our  plumb- 
nig  and  our  cabinet-making  and  our  upholstering 
and  our  tailoring  and  our  shoe-making ;  if  some  of 
our  painters  that  do  not  call  themselves  artists  mixed 
their  paints  with  conscience  as  well  as  with  brains. 
A  vast  amount  of  bad  work  is  done  in  these  days,  — 
slovenly  work,  dishonest  work.  That  is  one  way  in 
which  the  moral  sense  of  the  people  is  blunted  and 
depraved.     Lies  and  shams  are  all  aroimd  us ;   and 


The  Duty  and  Discipline  of  Work.  ?7 

we  become  so  accustomed  to  them  that  truth  and 
integrity  sometimes  seem  to  be  quite  out  of  place  in 
this  world.  "  Things  are  not  what  they  seem,"  says 
the  poet.  No,  I  shouldn't  think  they  were.  Almost 
nothing  that  man  has  made  is  what  it  seems.  Under 
a  fair  outside,  beneath  a  thick  coat  of  varnish,  all 
sorts  of  falsehoods  are  hiding. 

Now,  I  wish  you  could  be  made  to  see  that  work 
of  this  sort  is  morally  wrong.  A  lie  that  is  expressed 
in  wood  is  no  better  than  a  lie  that  is  expressed  in 
words.  Dishonest  work  is  just  as  bad  as  dishonest 
talk.  You  ought  not  to  be  guilty  of  it.  It  may  be 
that  you  are  in  the  employ  of  those  who  require  you 
to  work  in  this  way.  If  they  do,  I  suppose  the  fault 
is  theirs  and  not  yours.  But  do  keep  it  before  your 
thought  that  all  such  work  is  really  immoral,  and 
that  the  millennium  will  never  come  till  the  world  is 
rid  of  it. 

Sometimes  you  are  eager  to  discover  ways  of  doing 
good.  Begin  right  here,  then.  Do  your  work  well. 
You  can  add  very  greatly  to  the  sum  of  the  world's 
happiness  by  doing  honest  work.  Of  how  much  dis- 
comfort, and  bad  temper,  and  other  sin  your  bad 
work  is  the  cause,  none  of  you  are  perhaps  fully 
aware. 

But  what  reason  doe?  this  apostle  urge  why  these 
servants  should  put  their  souls  into  their  work;   wliy 


28         Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

they  should  do  it  intelligently,  conscientiously,  heart- 
ily ?  It  is  that  all  their  work  is  done  in  the  sight  of 
God.  "As  unto  the  Lord  and  not  unto  men,  you 
labor,"  says  Paul.  "It  is  not  for  your  earthly  mas- 
ter's sake,  it  is  not  for  your  own  sake,  that  I  urge  it : 
it  is  for  the  Lord's  sake."  To  the  Ephesian  servants 
he  gives  like  counsel :  "With  good- will  doing  ser- 
vice, as  to  the  Lord  and  not  to  men  ;  knowing  that, 
whatsoever  good  thing  any  man  doeth,  the  same  shall 
he  receive  of  the  Lord,  whether  he  be  bond  or  free." 
Paul  is  not  talking  here  about  religious  or  charita- 
ble work  at  all.  He  is  talking  about  the  kind  of 
work  at  which  these  slaves  were  kept  by  their  mas- 
ters. "  Whatsoever  good  thing  any  man  doeth," 
then,  —  whatsoever  good  carpentry,  whatsoever  good 
tent-making,  whatsoever  good  gardening,  whatsoever 
good  house-serving,  —  the  Lord  will  watch  and  reward. 
If  he  be  a  bondsman,  and  get  for  his  pains  nothing 
but  kicks  and  buffetings  from  his  master,  let  him  be 
patient,  and  remember  that  the  great  Artificer  on 
high,  all  whose  work  is  good,  and  who  delights  in  all 
good  work,  is  noting  his  faithfulness  and  thorough- 
ness'., and  will  recompense  him  for  it  in  due  season. 
If  he  be  working  for  wages,  and  all  the  credit  of  his 
good  work  go  to  the  master- workman,  no  matter: 
there  is  one  reckoning  in  which  no  man  will  be 
cheated  of  any  credit  that  belongs  to  him. 


The  Duty  add  Discipline  of  Work.  29 

In  short,  my  friends,  never  forget  that  there  are 
right  ways  and  wrong  ways  of  doing  your  work ; 
that  the  right  way  is  God's  way;  that  you  may  honor 
and  please  him,  not  only  by  a  faithful  diseharge  of 
the  duties  you  have  engaged  to  perform  for  men,  Ijut 
also  by  a  careful  and  pung^aking  performance  of  the 
work  itsel£ 


n. 

LABOR   AND   CAPITAL. 


History  shows  us  three  different  systems  by  which 
capital  and  labor  have  been  brought  together,  —  the 
system  of  slavery,  the  wages  system,  and  the  system 
of  co-operation. 

In  the  first  of  these  there  is  no  conflict  between 
capital  and  labor,  because  the  capitalist  owns  the 
laborer.  On  the  one  side  is  force,  on  the  other  side 
submission.  Labor  and  capital  are  indeed  identified, 
because  the  laborer  is  part  of  the  property  of  the 
capitahst  which  is  engaged  in  production.  There  is 
no  dispute  about  wages  ;  the  word  is  never  heard. 

This  system  of  slavery  is  recognized  and  regulated 
in  the  legislation  of  the  Bible,  just  as  polygamy  and 
blood  vengeance  are  recognized  and  regulated.  The 
laws  of  Moses  do  not  sanction  either  of  these  evils: 


Labor  and  Capital.  31 

they  only  set  bounds  to  them,  and  seeure  their  admin- 
istration on  eertain  })rineiples  of  justiee  and  humanity 
^vhieh  will  in  due  time  put  an  end  to  them.  And 
when  these  prineiples  begin  to  root  themselves  in  the 
convictions  of  the  people,  prophets  arise  announcing 
the  higher  law  of  perfect  righteousness,  of  which 
the  Levitical  legislation  was  only  the  precursor  ;  and 
bidding  the  people,  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  to 
undo  the  heavy  burdens,  and  to  let  the  oppressed 
go  free. 

Under  such  a  moral  regimen,  slavery  could  not 
thrive.  And  when  Christ  appeared,  declaring  that 
the  law  and  the  prophets  were  all  summed  up  in  the 
rule  which  bids  us  do  to  others  as  we  would  have 
others  do  to  us,  the  doom  of  the  system  was  sealed. 
There  is  no  express  legislation  against  it  in  the  New 
Testament ;  but  there  is  no  great  need  of  express 
legislation  against  wearing  fur  overcoats  in  July, 
^What  Christianity  did  was  to  create  a  moral  atmos- 
phere in  which  slavery  could  not  exist. 

Men  have  always  been  quoting  the  Bible  on  th(i 
side  of  slavery ;  but,  while  pettifogging  theologians 
have  been  searching  its  pages  for  texts  with  which 
to  prop  their  system,  the  spirit  of  the  book  has  been 
steadily  undermining  the  system. 

There  are  those  who  still  choose  to  represent  Chris- 
tianity as  the  ally  of  despotism.      A  newspaper  pub- 


32         Working  People  and  their  Employers, 


lislied  in  this  CoDimonwealth  made,  not  long  ago,  the 
sweeping  assertion,  that  "  freedom  and  Christianity 
are  fundamentally  and  irreconcilably  antagonistic; 
and  that  whoever  strikes  a  blow  for  the  one  strikes  a 
blow  against  the  other."  In  contradiction  to  this 
statement,  we  may  quote  the  whole  of  history.  Go 
back  to  the  dark  ages,  to  the  period  when  the 
Church  was  most  corrupt  and  faithless,  and  you 
will  find  that  even  then  it  always  was  the  champion 
of  the  oppressed.  Mr.  Fitzjames  Stephen,  one  of 
the  most  brilliant  of  living  English  writers,  —  him- 
self a  barrister  and  a  student  of  ancient  law,  though 
a  sceptic  as  regards  revealed  religion,  —  bears 
this  testimony  to  what  Christianity  has  done  for  lib- 
erty :  — 

"  The  glory  of  the  mediaeval  Church  is  the  resistance  which  it 
offered  to  tyranny  of  every  kind.  The  typical  bishop  of  those  times 
is  always  upholding  a  righteous  cause  against  kings  and  emperors,  or 
exhorting  masters  to  let  their  slaves  go  free,  or  giving  sanctuary  to 
harassed  fugitives.  .  .  .  What  is  true  of  the  bishops  is  true  in  a  still 

ore  eminent  degree  of  the  religious  orders." 

Read  Guizot's  History  of  Civilization  in  Europe 
for  abundant  confirmation  of  these  statements.  The 
power  of  the  keys  which  the  Church  put  into  the 
hands  of  the  priest  was  used  in  behalf  of  the  enslaved, 
in  unlocking  their  shackles  and   in  lightening  their 


Labor  and  Capital.  xx 


burdens.  The  destructiou  of  the  feudal  system  in 
Europe,  and  the  abolition  of  serfdom,  was,  in  eon- 
siderable  part,  the  work  of  the  Christian  Church. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  this  fact  of  hi.'^to^-y,  because  F 
wish  to  make  it  plain  to  working-^pen  that  the  reli- 
gion of  Christ  is  not  hostile  to  their  interests ;  that 
it  has  indeed  done  more  for  the  mitigation  of  their 
hardships,  and  the  enlargement  of  their  privileges, 
than  any  other  power  on  earth.  The  suspicion  with 
which  the  laboring  classes,  especially  in  Europe,  have 
been  taught  by  some  of  their  leaders  to  regard  Chris- 
tianity, may  be  excusable  in  view  of  the  corrupt  and 
perverted  nature  of  the  Christianity  by  which  they 
are  surrounded ;  but  it  would  surely  be  impossible, 
if  they  had  any  clear  notion  of  what  the  religion  of 
Christ  is,  and  of  what  it  has  done  for  them. 

If,  then,  this  first  system  in  which  history  brings 
together  the  capitalist  and  the  laborer,  the  system  of 
bondage,  be  largely  a  thing  of  the  past ;  if  the  work- 
man has  now,  in  many  lands,  been  emancipated,  — 
this  result  is  due,  in  great  part,  to  the  prevalence 
of  the  Christian  religion. 

The  second  of   these  systems   is    that    in  which, 
throughout  the   civilized  world,  we  now  find  capital 
and  labor,  in  which   they  freely  exchange   services.^ 
The  workman   gives  his  work  in  exchange   for  thci' 
(employer's  money.      There  is  a    contract    between^ 


54         Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

them,  by  which  the  rate  of  remuneration  is  fixed. 
The  fundamental  principle  of  this  wages  system  is 
competition,  that  is,  conflict.  If  all  men  were  benev- 
olent, if  the  Golden  Rule  were  the  rule  of  all 
exchanges,  of  course  this  need  not  be ;  but  unfor 
tunately,  the  business  of  the  world  is  for  the  mos: 
part  organized  on  a  basis  of  self-interest ;  ai.d  thus, 
by  the  wages  system,  the  interest  of  the  employer 
and  the  interest  of  the  laborer  come  directly  into 
collision.  The  laborer  wants  to  get  all  he  can  for  his 
labor,  the  employer  wants  to  give  for  it  no  more 
than  he  must ;  and  between  the  two  there  is  an 
unceasing  struggle  for  advantage  and  mastery. 
How  sharp  and  fierce  this  struggle  is,  let  the  history 
of  England  and  America  for  the  last  twenty-five 
years  bear  record. 

Thus  the  second  stage  in  the  progress  of  labor  is 
a  stage  of  conflict.  Slavery  first,  then  war.  All  the 
kingdoms  of  the  world's  industry  are  now  in  a  state 
of  war.  Sometimes  the  strife  is  suppressed,  and 
there  is  apparent  peace ;  sometimes  the  warfare  is 
only  one  of  words  or  of  unfriendly  combinations:  but 
very  often,  as  lately  in  the  Pennsylvania  coal-fields, 
the  parties  come  to  blows.  Violence  is  constantly 
resorted  to  when  the  contest  waxes  hot.  Either 
between  the  employers  and  the  laborers  there  is  a 
direct  issue   of  force,   or  else   part   of  the  laborers 


Labor  and  Cafntal.  35 

take  the  side  of  the  employers,  and  are  attacked 
as  traitors  to  the  army  of  hibor.  But  even  when 
the  arbitrament  of  brickbats  and  bludgeons  is  not 
appealed  to,  there  is  none  the  less  a  state  of  war. 
Capital  will  assert  and  maintain  its  claims,  so  will 
labor ;  and  neither  will  yield  to  the  other  more  than 
it  is  compelled  to  do.  Labor  and  capital  work 
together  in  production.  They  must  work  together. 
Capital  is  worth  nothing  without  labor ;  labor  can- 
not subsist  without  capital.  The  contest  arises  in 
dividing  the  profits  of  this  joint  production.  Over 
these  profits  there  is  a  perpetual  quarrel.  It  is 
generally  believed,  among  working-men,  that  the 
capitalist  gets  the  lion's  share  of  them;  it  is  com- 
monly asserted  nowadays  by  capitalists,  that  busi- 
ness cannot  be  done  without  a  loss  on  account  of 
the  high  rate  of  wages.  I  do  not  pretend  to  know 
which  side  is  right :  I  only  see  the  quarrel  going  on, 
and  wish  that  it  might  in  some  way  be  stopped. 
Can  it  be  stopped  ?     That  is  the  question. 

I  have  read  what  the  political  economists  have  to 
say  about  this  matter,  and  I  confess  that  it  does  not 
help  me  very  much.  There  is  much  learned  talk 
about  the  wages  fund ;  and  no  little  dispute  among 
the  professors  as  to  what  this  wages  fund  is,  and 
whether  the  laborers  are  paid  out  of  it  or  out  of  the 
product.     Indeed,  it  would  seem  that  th(i  warfare  of 


36        Workhig  People  and  their  Employers. 

which  the  wages  system  is  the  occasion  is  not  con 
fined  to  the  factories,  but  extends  to  the  universities 
as  well.  They  tell  us  that  a  certain  part  of  the 
profits  of  production  is  set  aside  by  the  capitalists  to 
pay  future  laborers,  and  that  the  price  of  wages 
depends  upon  the  relation  of  this  wages  fund  to  the 
number  of  laborers,  and  can  depend  on  nothing  else  ; 
that  when  the  wages  fund  is  large,  and  the  laborers 
are  few,  the  wages  will  be  high  because  each  man's 
share  will  be  larger ;  that,  on  the  other  hand,  when 
the  wages  fund  is  small  and  the  laborers  are  many, 
the  wages  must  be  low  because  each  man's  share 
will  be  small.  Accordingly,  they  tell  us,  the  whole 
question  is  one  of  supply  and  demand :  the  rate  of 
wages  is  determined  by  fixed  economical  laws ;  the 
will  of  the  employer  cannot  alter  it;  no  combina- 
tions of  workmen  can  affect  it ;  it  is  just  as  vain  to 
undertake  to  control  it  by  legislation  or  by  organi- 
zation as  it  would  be  to  control  the  winds  or  the 
tides  in  that  way. 

Well,  that  may  be  true,  and  probably  is  true  if 
men  are  not  moral  beings;  if  the  doctrines  of  mate- 
rialism or  of  high  Calvinism  are  true,  and  if  the 
actions  of  men  are  determined  by  forces  outside  of 
themselves.  But  we  shall  venture  to  assume  for  a 
Uttle  while  longer  that  the  wills  of  men  are  free; 
that  their  choices  have  something  to  do  with  their 


Labor  and  Capital.  37 

destinies;  and  that  by  the  presentation  to  them  of 
truth,  by  an  appeal  to  their  reason  and  their  moral 
sense,  their  conduct  may  be  influenced.  The  ques 
tions  of  social  science  or  of  political  economy  are 
in  part  moral  questions;  and  my  business  is  to  find 
out  what  are  the  moral  considerations  that  enter  into 
this  problem,  by  which  the  strife  between  labor  and 
capital  may  be  tempered^  and  the  good  of  both 
parties  may  be  promoted. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  it  would  appear  that  what 
the  economists  call  the  wages  fund  —  that  portion 
of  the  capital  which  is  devoted  to  the  remuneration 
of  labor  —  does  depend  somewhat  on  the  will  of 
the  capitalist.  It  depends  partly  on  his  habits  of 
living  whether  it  shall  be  increased  or  diminished. 
Tf  he  is  lavish  in  his  personal  expenditures,  he  will 
not  of  course  have  so  large  a  wages  fund  as  if  he  is 
economical.  Here  is  an  employer  who  during  the 
year  spends  ten  thousand  dollars  in  the  merest 
luxuries  of  life,  —  in  feasting  and  in  dressing,  —  in 
that  which  is  consumed  and  cast  aside  with  the 
using:  must  not  his  power  to  remunerate  his  work- 
men be  reduced  by  that  amount?  Might  he  not,  if 
he  had  chosen,  have  used  this  money  in  increasing 
the  wages  of  his  laborers? 

''But  that  is  all  nonsense,"  answers  the  capitalist. 
''Business  is  business.     Supply  and  demand,  my  dear 


38         Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

parson !  Supply  and  demand !  Every  man  must 
pay  the  market  price  for  labor,  and  any  man  is  a 
fool  who  pays  more."  No,  my  friend:  you  do  your- 
self wrong.  You  are  not  wholly  the  victim  of  these 
economical  laws :  you  resist  them  and  rule  them 
sometimes,  in  the  interest  of  humanity.  There  is  a 
poor  man  in  your  employ  who  has  been  partly 
disabled.  In  the  market,*  he  could  get  almost  noth- 
ing for  his  labor.  But  you  take  pity  on  him  and  his 
household,  and  continue  his  wages  at  the  rate  you 
paid  him  when  he  was  in  health.  That  is  not 
"  supply  and  demand  "  at  all.  Another  law  comes 
in  here,  a  better  law,  —  the  law  of  love.  You  do 
bring  it  in,  now  and  then,  to  alleviate  the  hardships 
that  would  result  from  the  inflexible  enforcement  of 
those  economical  laws  of  which  you  speak.  The 
question  is,  whether  you  might  not  bring  it  in  a  little 
oftener ;  whether,  indeed,  you  might  not  incorporate 
it  into  all  your  dealings  with  your  working-men  ;  and 
instead  of  saying,  "Business  is  business,"  say,  "Busi- 
ness is  stewardship :  business  is  the  high  calling 
of  God,  into  which  I  am  bound  to  put  conscience 
and  benevolence,  as  well  as  sagacity  and  enterprise." 
This  is  just  what  Christian  principle  ought  to  effect 
on  the  side  of  capital,  in  the  relation  between 
capital  and  labor  ;  just  what  it  does  effect  in  some 
degree  :  bu^  if,  on  the  present  basis  of  production. 


Labor  a7id  Capital.  39 


there  is  to  be  any  enduring  peace  between  these 
now  warring  parties,  there  must  be  on  the  part  of 
capitalists  a  good  deal  more  of  this  intervention  of 
Christian  principle,  to  hold  in  check  the  cruel  ten- 
dencies of  the  economic  forces. 

Not  only  on  the  side  of  the  capitalist  must  this 
spirit  of  sweet  reasonableness  find  expression:  the 
workman  must  govern  himself  by  the  same  law.  If 
employers  are  sometimes  heartless  and  extortionate, 
laborers  are  sometimes  greedy  and  headstrong.  I 
have  known  of  more  than  one  case  in  which  work- 
men have  demanded  an  increase  of  wages  when  the 
business  was  yielding  no  profits ;  when  the  balance 
every  month  was  on  the.  wrong  side  of  the  employ- 
er's books ;  when  with  the  strictest  economy  in  his 
personal  expenditures,  and  the  most  careful  attention 
to  his  affairs,  he  was  growing  poorer  instead  of  richer 
every  day.  I  have  known  other  cases,  in  which 
workmen  have  resisted  a  reduction  of  wages,  when 
that  was  the  only  condition  on  which  the  business 
could  be  carried  on  without  disaster.  As  a  mere 
matter  of  policy,  this  is  suicidal.  For  workmen  to 
exact  a  rate  of  pay  that  shall  destroy  the  business  by 
which  they  get  their  living,  is  simply  to  kill  the 
goose  that  lays  the  golden  (i^^g  every  day,  because 
she  does  not  lay  two  every  day.  It  is  not,  however, 
with  the  policy  of  the   transaction  that  I  am  chiefly 


40        Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

concerned,  but  with  the  rightfuhiess  of  it.  Grave 
wrongs  are  often  in  this  way  inflicted  upon  em- 
ployers: their  business  is  paralyzed,  their  credit  is 
impaired,  their  property  is  swept  away ;  and,  in  the 
destruction  of  the  enterprises  which  they  are  carry- 
ing on,  their  power  to  help  and  serve  their  fellow - 
men  is  crippled.  For  nothing  is  plainer  than  that  a 
man  who  organizes  and  carries  on  any  honest  lousi- 
ness, in  which  he  gives  employment  and  fair  remun- 
eration to  laborers,  ought  to  be  considered  a  public 
benefactor.  All  depends,  of  course,  upon  the 
manner  in  which  he  manages  his  business.  If  it  is 
managed  in  the  spirit  of  Shylock,  it  may  be  an  injury 
to  the  community ;  but  if  it  is  based  upon  principles 
of  justice  and  fair  play,  it  is  a  benefit  to  the  com- 
munity, and  the  destruction  of  it  is  a  calamity  and  a 
wrong,  not  only  to  him,  but  also  to  the  public. 
Any  combination  of  laborers  that  undertakes  to 
cripple  or  to  kill  an  enti^rprise  of  this  kind  is  en- 
gaged in  a  bad  business. 

''  Is  this  meant,  then,  for  a  condemnation  of 
strikes?"  asks  somebody.  Not  necessarily.  I  have 
no  doubt  that  such  combinations  of  laborers  are 
often  unwise  and  unprofitable ;  that,  as  a  general 
thing,  they  result  in  more  loss  than  gain  to  the 
laboring  classes;  but  it  does  not  appear  to  me  that 
they  are  always  morally  wrong.     This  is  a  fi'oe  coun- 


Labor  and  Capital.  41 


t7y  :  if  you  do  not  choose  to  work  (or  a  inmi  unless 
lie  will  pay  you  a  certain  rate  of  wages,  no  one  can 
compel  you  to  do  so ;  and  if  ten  or  twenty  or  two 
hundred  of  your  fellow-workmen  are  of  the  same 
mind,  and  prefer  to  be  idle  for  a  season  rather  than 
to  take  less  than  the  price  demanded  for  their  ser 
vices,  they  have  a  right  to  do  it.  But  it  seems  to 
me  that  yon  ought  to  consider  whether  by  your 
combination  you  may  not  be  inflicting  serious  dam- 
age upon  the  whole  community,  and  that  you  ought 
to  have  some  regard  to  the  public  good  in  what  you 
do.  If  the  Christian  law  governs  your  conduct,  you 
will  think  of  this.  But  if  you  can  satisfy  yourself 
that  the  public  welfare  will  take  no  serious  detriment 
from  your  action,  I  do  not  know  that  it  can  be 
shown  to  be  morally  wrong.  You  and  your  fellows 
may  find  it  for  your  advantage  to  take  this  course  ; 
and  it  is  0,  lawful  means  of  securing  your  own 
advantage.  On  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  for  your 
disadvantage  ;  you  may  be  worse  ofl"  in  the  end :  but 
that  is  your  concern  and  the  concern  of  those  depen- 
dent on  you.  So  long  as  you  pay  your  honest  debts, 
and  support  your  families,  no  one  else  has  a  right  to 
complain  if  you  do  take  a  course  wdiich  results  in 
loss  and  damage  to  yourself 

Certain    measures    are,    hcnvever,    frequentlj^    re- 
sorted    to    at   such    times   that    are    morallv  wronjr. 


42         Working  People  and  their  Employers, 


You  have  a  right  to  refuse  to  work  for  less  than  a 
certam  rate,  and  you  have  a  right  to  influence  others 
to  join  with  you  in  this  refusal ;  but  you  have  no 
right  to  use  force  or  intimidation  to  keep  any  man 
from  working  for  less.  Nobody  has  any  right  to 
force  you  to  work :  you  have  no  right  to  compel 
anybody  to  be  idle  who  is  satisfied  with  less  wages 
than  you  demand.  He  may  be  a  poor  workman;  but 
that  is  his  employer's  concern,  not  yours.  If  you 
can  persuade  him  to  join  you,  very  good ;  but  you 
have  no  right  to  lay  a  straw  in  his  way  if  he  refuses 
to  join  you.  We  believe  in  free  labor  in  this  coun- 
try, do  we  not?  And  that  belief  implies  that  no 
laborer  ought  to  be  enslaved  or  coerced  by  his  em- 
ployer or  by  his  fellow-laborers. 

If,  now,  workmen  will  endeavor  to  deal  with  their 
employers  and  with  one  another  without  threatening 
or  violence,  in  a  spirit  of  good- will  and  fair  play ; 
recognizing  the  important  service  that  is  rendered 
them  by  the  men  who  organize  the  various  industries 
by  which  they  get  a  living,  and  trying  to  render  a 
fair  equivalent  in  work  for  the  wages  they  receive ; 
they  will  do  ilieir  part  toward  terminating  this  un- 
happy strife  which  has  so  long  prevailed  between 
labor  and  capital.  It  is  a  most  melancholy  quarrel : 
society  is  disturbed  and  unsettled  by  it,  and  the 
human  brotherhood  is  rent  into  discordant  and  hos 


Labor  and  Capital.  43 

tile  factions.  If  the  capitalist  would  measure  his 
profits,  and  the  working-man  liis  wages,  by  the  Gold- 
en  Rule,  there  would  be  instant  peace.  And  that  is 
the  only  way  to  secure  peace  on  the  basis  of  the 
wages  system.  Political  economy  cannot  secure  it : 
its  maxims  breed  more  strife  than  they  allay.  Polit- 
ical economy  only  deals  with  natural  forces ;  and  the 
natural  forces,  even  those  which  manifest  themselves 
in  society,  often  seem  to  be  heartless  and  cruel.  The 
law  of  nature  would  appear  to  be  the  survival  of  the 
strongest ;  and  it  is  the  workings  of  this  law  with 
which  political  economy  has  to  do.  Legislation 
cannot  stop  this  strife.  What,  indeed,  is  law  but  an 
edict  of  force  ?  Behind  every  law  is  the  policeman's 
billy  or  the  soldier's  bayonet.  It  has  no  meaning, 
no  efficacy,  unless  there  is  force  behind  it.  And  you 
cannot  make  peace  with  a  sword  between  these  con- 
tending interests.  A  gentler  influence,  a  subtler 
but  a  mightier  force,  must  take  possession  of  the 
minds  and  hearts  of  the  combatants  on  either  side 
before  the  warfare  will  cease.  If  the  spirit  that 
dwelt  in  Christ  be  in  you,  —  if  you  will  learn  to 
"look  not  every  man  on  his  own  things,  but  also  on 
the  things  of  others ; "  to  love  your  neighbors  as 
yoursefves ;  to  put  yourselves  in  their  places  now 
and  then,  and  judge  their  conduct  and  yours  too 
from  their  point  of  view, — you  will  speedily  come 


44         Working  People  and  their  Employ efs, 

to  terms  in  all  your  quarrels.  And  is  it  not  about 
time  for  all  of  you,  capitalists  and  laborers,  in  view 
of  the  wasting  warfare  that  you  have  so  long  been 
waging,  to  lay  to  heart  the  injunction  of  Paul,  "  If 
ye  bite  and  devour  one  another,  take  heed  that  ye 
be  not  consumed  one  of  another  "  ? 

I  must  own  that  I  have  not  much  hope,  however, 
that  the  war  to  which  the  wages  system  gives 
occasion  will  ever  cease  until  the  system  is  abolished 
or  greatly  modified.  Christian  principle  can  do 
much  to  mitigate  the  strife,  so  far  as  it  gains  control 
of  the  lives  of  men ;  but  it  will  be  a  good  while 
before  the  masses  of  men,  whether  capitalists  or 
laborers,  are  so  fully  governed  by  the  Christian 
law  that  they  will  cease  to  struggle  for  the  advan- 
tage and  mastery.  The  wages  system  is  better  than 
slavery,  because  conflict  is  better  than  apathy;  but 
there  is  something  better  than  the  wages  system,  and 
I  hope  that  we  some  time  shall  reach  it. 

The  subjugation  of  labor  by  capital  is  the  first 
stage  in  the  progress  of  industry ;  the  second  stage 
is  the  warfare  between  labor  and  capital ;  the  third 
is  the  identification  of  labor  and  capital  by  some 
application  of  the  principle  of  co-operation.  This  is 
what  we  are  coming  to  by  and  by.  The  long^  strug 
gle  between  these  two  conflicting  interests  promises 


Labjr  and  Capital.  45 


tO  end  by  uniting  tlicm,  and  making  the  laburer 
Lis  own  capitalist. 

I  need  not  stop  to  describe  this  system  to  you  : 
you  are  all  flxmiliar  with  the  principles  on  wliicli  U 
rests.  By  combining  their  savings,  tlie  workmen 
employ  themselves,  and  divide  the  profits  of  the 
business  among  themselves. 

Not  only  will  peace  be  promoted  by  such  an 
organization  of  labor,  but  thrift  and  morality  also. 
None  but  those  who  have  a*mind  to  save  their  earn- 
ings can  become  members  of  such  an  association. 
Business  requires  capital,  and  the  capital  must  be 
provided  from  the  savings  of  the  workmen  tliem- 
selves.  In  furnishing  a  strong,  motive  to  economy, 
co-operation  will  do  good.  The  miseries  of  the 
working  people  in  this  country  are  often  due  to 
extravagance  and  improvidence,  rather  than  to  insuf- 
ficient incomes.  Besides,  it  is  always  necessary  in 
these  associations  to  enforce  rigid  rules  of  moral 
conduct.  Drunkards  or  idlers  are  immediately 
turned  out.  Sober  and  steady  workers  are  not  at  all 
disposed  to  divide  their  profits  with  the  lazy  and 
dissolute. 

We  may  hope,  too,  that  co-operation  will  secure 
greater  economy  of  material,  and  better  work.  The 
workmen  working  for  themselves,  and  having  a 
direct  interest  in  the  profits  of  their  worjc,  are  likely 


OF  THE 


UhJl\/FCfilTV 


46         Working  People  and  tJieir  Employers. 

to  be  careful  about  waste.  This  carefulness  will  b< 
of  advantage  not  only  to  them,  but  to  everybody 
else.  The  world  is  enriched  not  only  by  the  discov- 
ery of  new  wealth,  but  by  the  frugal  use  of  that 
which  is  already  in  men's  hands.  All  waste  makes 
the  world  poorer. 

For  the  same  reason,  because  each  man  is  working 
for  himself,  it  is  directly  for  his  interest  to  make  all 
his  work  as  nearly  perfect  as  he  can ;  and  that  is  a 
result  at  which  the  whok  world  ought  to  rejoice. 

Such  are  some  of  the  results  which  may  be  ex- 
pected from  the  success  of  industrial  co-operation. 
The  expectation  is  not  based  upon  theory,  but  upon 
accomplished  facts.  Already  in  France  and  in  Eng- 
land the  experiment  has  been  tried  with  remarkable 
success.  A  year  ago,  Mr.  Thomas  Brassey,  M.P.,  in 
an  address  before  the  Co-operative  Congress,  stated 
that  there  were  in  England  and  Wales  746  co-opera- 
tive societies,  with  more  than  300,000  members,  the 
share  capital  amounting  to  nearly  $14,000,000 ;  and 
that  during  the  previous  year  they  had  transacted  a 
business  amounting  to  nearly  $57,000,000.  The 
larger  part  of  this  business,  however,  was  in  the 
mercantile  rather  than  in  the  manufacturing  line.  In 
England  the  system  has  worked  better  in  distribution 
than  in  production  ;  but  there  ha?  been  considerable 
success  in  bo^h  directions. 


Labor  and  Capital,  47 


But  some  of  you  may  ask  why  a  system  so  L'xc^el- 
lent  has  not  been  universally  adopted.  There  are 
two  or  three  reasons.  So  far  as  this  eountry  is  eon- 
cerjied,  the  wages  of  labor  have  hitherto  been  so 
hii'ge  that  working-men  have  been  pretty  well  satis- 
lied  with  their  condition,  and  have  not  been  driven 
to  devise  new  ways  of  gaining  a  livelihood. 

In  the  second  place,  working-men  everywhere  lack , 
confidence  in  the  honesty  and  fidelity  of  one  another.) 
They  hesitate  to  risk  their  savings  in  such  enter- 
prises, for  fear  some  faithless  treasurer  will  default 
and  run  away  with  them.  Very  many  of  the 
co-operative  stores  in  this  country  have  come  to  grief 
in  this  way. 

In  the  third  place,  in  the  members  of  such  an 
organization,  a  certain  trait  is  essential  which  I  may 
find  it  difficult  to  describe  in  one  word,  and  which 
is  not  so  fully  developed  as  it  might  be  among  our 
working-people,  or  among  our  people  who  do  not 
work,  for  that  matter.  It  is  the  trait  that  makes  a 
man  work  well  in  harness.  It  is  the  spirit  of  con- 
cession, the  spirit  of  subordination,  the  spirit  that 
tliinks  less  of  personal  power  or  gain  or  glory  than 
of  the  common  good.  It  is  the  spirit  that  we  ought 
to  find  as  the  bond  of  union  in  all  our  churclies,  and 
do  find  sometimes,  thank  God !  It  is  the  virtue  Paul 
inculcates   wl.en    he    bids  the  Romans,   "Be  kindly 


48         Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

aiFectioned  one  toward  another  with  brotherly  love, 
in  honor  preferring  one  another."  Where  this  spirit 
abounds,  there  is  always  unity  and  fruitfulness ; 
where  this  spirit  is  not,  there  is  confusion  and  all 
kinds  of  evil.  And  it  is  the  absence  of  this  spirit 
that  hinders  the  success  of  many  of  our  co-operative 
societies. 

There  is  or  was  an  Iron-Workers'  Co-operative 
Association  in  Troy,  N.Y.,  whose  success  at  the 
begiiLning  was  quite  remarkable.  Last  summer  I 
wrote  to  a  gentleman  living  there,  to  inquire  how 
it  was  flourishing;  and  he  replied  that  it  seemed 
to  be  losing  ground.  Dissensions  among  the  mem- 
bers were  killing  it.  There  had  been  frequent 
changes  '  of  managers,  and  it  appeared  that  every 
man  wanted  to  be  boss. 

More  than  one  association  of  the  kind  has  met  i^d 
fate  in  this  way.  You  cannot  have  co-operation  till 
you  can  find  men  who  can  co-operate.  How  can 
you?  ^         ^      \^ 

Add  to  these  considerations,  the  fact  that  compara- 
tively few  among  our  working-men  have  the  intelli- 
gence and  sagacity  requisite  to  organize  and  manage 
a  large  business,  and  you  have  a  pretty  clear  expla- 
nation of  the  reasons  why  co-operation  has  not  been 
more  generally  introduced.  '  Before  the  production 
of  the  country  can  be  carried  on  in  this  way,  there 


LaOor  a7id  Capital.  49 

must  be  a  great  improvement  in  the  mental  and  moral 
qualities  of  working-people.  But  this  improvement 
is  steadily  going  on ;  our  free  schools  and  our  open 
churches  are  offering  to  the  children  of  our  mechan- 
ics and  operatives  a  culture  in  morality  and  intelli- 
gence that  we  may  hope  will  qualify  them  after  a 
while,  to  take  their  destinies  into  their  own  hands, 
"^he  hour  is  not  yet  come,  but  it  is  sure  to  come ; 
and  the  bell  that  strikes  it  will 

"Ring  out  the  feud  of  rich  and  poor." 

The  transition  from  the  wages  system  to  the  sys- 
tem of  co-operation  is  likely  to  be  made  through  the 
introduction  of  what  are  called  industrial  partner- 
ships :  by  which  the  work-people  in  a  manufacturing 
establishment  are  given  an  interest  in  the  business ; 
and,  in  addition  to  their  wages,  a  stipulated  portion 
of  the  piofits  is  divided  among  them  at  the  close  of 
eveiy  year,  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  their 
earnings.  It  would  seem  that  the  times  are  fully 
ripe  for  the  adoption  of  this  principle.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  many  of  our  manufacturers  would  fnid  it 
greatly  to  their  advantage  to  introduce  it ;  that  it 
would  result  in  securing  steadier  workmen  and 
better  work,  and  that  it  would  put  an  end  to  strikes 
and  all  other  forms  of  strife, 
*^ut,  if  I  am  right,  working-men,  as  to  the  obsta- 


50        Working  People  and  their  Employers. 


cles  that  hinder  your  entrance  upon  the  better  sys- 
tem, they  are  mainly  such  as  arise  out  of  your  own 
defective  conduct  toward  each  other  ;  they  are  such, 
too.  as  the  Christian  rehgion  is  calculated  to  remove. 
Indeed,  is  it  not  just  because  the  Christian  principle 
does  not  govern  your  lives,  that  you  cannot  co-oper- 
ate ?  If  the  law  of  love  ruled  your  treatment  of 
each  other,  you  would  have  no  difficulty  whatever  in 
working  together ;  in  taking  into  your  own  hands  all 
the  grand  industrial  enterprises  of  the  age,  and  carry- 
ing them  forward  with  a  vigor  and  a  success  that  the 
world  has  never  seen  under  the  principle  of  competi 
tion. 

For,  let  no  one  fail  to  see  that  co-operation  is  noth- 
ing more  than  the  arrangement  of  the  essential 
factors  of  industry  according  to  the  Christian  rule, 
"  We  being  many  are  one  body  in  Christ,  and  every 
one  members  one  of  another."  It  is  capital  and 
labor  adjusting  themselves  to  the  form  of  Christian- 
ity ;  and,  like  every  other  outward  symbol,  is  a  false 
deceitful  show,  a  dead  form,  unless  filled  with  the 
living  spirit  of  Christianity  itself 

Working-men,  I  ask  you  to  ponder  these  things. 
There  are  those  who  seek  to  make  you  think  that  the 
Church  of  Christ  is  an  enemy,  or  at  best  but  a  heart- 
less stepmother,  greedy  to  get  your  service,  but 
careless   of  your   welfare.     I   know    that   there   are 


Labor  and  Capital,  51 


elementJi  in  the  Church  —  corrupted  fragments  of  the 
Church  —  against  which  such  a  charge  as  this  might 
be  truly  brought;  but  it  is  not  true  of  the  Christian 
doctrine  or  the  Christian  system.  The  power  that 
has  stricken  the  shackles  from  the  laborer,  that  has 
lightened  his  burdens,  that  has  lifted  him  up  to  a 
happier  and  a  nobler  life,  and  that  has  put  into  his 
hands  the  key  of  a  great  future,  is  the  power  that 
came  into  the  world  when  Christ  was  born. 


m. 

HARD  TIMES  AND  HOW  TO  EASE  THEM. 

If  what  everybody  says  be  true,  it  must  be  that  the 
times  are  hard  upon  which  we  have  fallen.  The 
merchants,  the  capitalists,  the  employing  classes,  the 
professional  people,  are  all  complaining  about  them ; 
everywhere  they  are  the  staple  of  conversation. 
There  is  no  famine,  nor  any  thing  like  it.  The  ne- 
cessaries of  life  are  abundant,  and  not  very  dear. 
Absolute  want  is  scarcely  known  among  us :  most  of 
our  people  get  enough  to  eat,  and  something  to 
wear,  and  something  to  warm  themselves  withal; 
but  a  great  many  of  them  fail  to  get  as  much  as 
they  would  like  of  the  comforts  of  life,  if  not  of  its 
absolute  necessaries. 

As  for  the  capitalists,  no  doubt  they  have  encoun- 
tered, during   the  last   two  or  three  years,  a  great 
52 


Hard  Times  and  How  to  Ease    Them.       53 


shrinkage  of  values, — of  estimated  values,  at  any 
rate.  Many  have  suffered  real  losses;  but  many 
more  have  suffered  speculative  losses.  Some  are  not 
so  rich  as  they  were ;  hardly  anybody  is  so  rich  as 
he  thought  he  was.  Many  who  supposed  that  they 
had  accumulated  enough  to  live  upon  without  labor 
find  their  funds  or  their  real  estate  depreciated,  so 
that  they  must  set  themselves  to  eke  out  their 
income  by  their  earnings.  Business  that  was  very 
profitable  a  few  years  ago  is  much  less  profitable 
now ;  some  enterprises  are  carried  on  at  a  steady 
loss,  in  hope  of  the  better  times  which  seem  to 
come  but  tardily. 

As  for  the  working-people,  not  many  of  them  had 
any  thing  to  lose ;  but  their  work  is  not  so  steady 
as  they  could  wish,  and  their  wages  have  been 
reduced,  so  that  their  annual  earnings  are  percepti- 
bly smaller  than  they  were  two  or  three  years  ago. 

Of  all  this  stagnation  of  trade,  this  paralysis  of  in- 
dustry, there  must  be  causes.  Is  it  not  worth  while 
to  look  for  them  ?  Would  it  be  amiss  if  some  prophet 
of  the  Lord  should  bid  us,  as  Haggai  once  bade  the 
people  of  Judaea  when  harder  times  were  prevail- 
ing among  them,  to  consider  our  ways,  —  the  ways 
by  which  we  have  come  into  this  distress ;  the  ways 
in  which  we  are  stumbling  along  now,  in  a  discour- 
aged endeavor  to  get  out  of  it? 


54         Workmg  People  and  their  Employers, 

The  real  losses  that  this  country  has  suffered,  and 
that  have  had  their  part  in  producing  these  hard 
times,  are  not  far  to  seek.  Within  the  past  fifteen 
years,  an  enormous  amount  of  property  has  been 
destroyed  in  this  country.  The  waste  of  the  war 
was  simply  prodigious.  Hundreds  of  millions  of 
wealth  were  obliterated  utterly  ;  burnt  up,  demol- 
ished, shot  away  in  iron  and  lead  and  gunpowder. 
Of  course,  such  a  destruction  of  property  must  im- 
poverish the  land.  A  nation  may  tide  over  the 
shoal  of  debt,  heaped  up  in  such  a  time,  on  a  flood 
of  paper  money ;  but  the  due-bills  of  the  govern- 
ment must  be  settled  by  and  by,  and  when  that  time 
comes  it  will  be  seen  that  paper  is  poor  stuff  with 
which  to  patch  up  the  breaches  that  war  has  made 
in  the  national  capital.  Vast  regions  of  the  South 
were  devastated  by  the  war  ;  and  since  that  war  the 
people  of  those  regions  have  been  unable  to  make 
any  large  contribution  to  the  national  wealth.  They 
cannot  buy  of  us  the  fabrics  with  which  we  were 
wont  to  supply  them,  because  they  have  nothing 
wherewith  to  pay  for  them.  That  stops  our  mill- 
wheels,  while  the  taxes  that  have  followed  in  the 
wake  of  the  war  reduce  our  incomes  and  burden 
our  industries. 

This  is  the  inevitable  result  of  a  severe  and  de- 
structive war.     If  a  nation  chooses  to  dance  to  the 


Hard  Times  and  How  to   Ease   Them.        55 

music  of  the  musket,  it  must  be  ready,  when  the 
piping  times  of  peace  come,  to  pay  the  piper 
Whatsoever  a  nation  so  wet  h,  that  shall  it  also  reap. 
If  it  sows  destruction,  it  will  reap  poverty.  There 
is  no  discharge  in  any  war  from  the  burdens  tliat  the 
war  brings  after  it. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  nation  was  not  justi- 
fied, when  the  issue  was  raised,  in  meeting  it  just  as 
it  did ;  the  nation  is  worth  all  that  it  has  cost  to 
save  it,  and  more  :  but  it  may  be  well  for  us  to  re- 
member that  the  whole  land  was  to  blame  for  the 
state  of  things  that  resulted  in  the  war,  and  that  we 
are  only  reaping  now  what  we  have  sown.  Such  a 
moral  enormity,  such  an  economical  folly  as  slavery 
was,  must  bring  calamity  in  due  season  upon  the 
aation  that  suffered  it.  Yet  we  at  the  North  did 
suffer  it ;  we  were  not  at  all  in  earnest  about  putting 
an  end  to  it ;  we  resisted  for  years  all  efforts  to  set 
bounds  to  it,  and  secure  its  peaceful  extinction.  We 
wanted  Southern  trade  more  than  we  >fanted  justice 
and  righteousness.  Our  subservience  to  the  slave- 
power  emboldened  it  to  push  its  exactions  more  and 
more  imperiously,  till  at  length  we  were  forced  to 
fice  the  bitter  alternative  of  disunion  or  war. 
Twenty-five  years  of  truckling  was  what  did  it. 
And  we  are  paying  the  penalty  of  that  to-day.  We 
paid  its  first  instalments  in  five  years  of  carnage; 


56         Working  People  mid  their  Employers. 

but  there  was  gold  as  well  as  blood  in  the  bond,  and 
the  bond  is  not  yet  quite  discharged. 

The  two  classes  at  the  North  that  were  most  un- 
willing to  have  the  demands  of  slavery  challenged 
were  the  commercial  class  and  the  labormg  class. 
The  first  did  not  want  to  lose  their  customers;  the 
others  were  afraid  that,  if  the  slaves  were  emanci- 
pated, there  would  be  an  irruption  of  negro  labor 
into  the  industries  of  the  North.  These  two  classes 
are  suffering  most  to-day  from  the  results  of  the  war. 
It  may  be  well  for  us  all  to  read  in  this  chapter  of 
history  the  lesson  that  the  way  of  righteousness  is 
always  the  safest  road  in  tlie  end. 

Since  the  waste  of  the  war  came  to  an  end,  we 
have  suffered  several  severe  losses  by  fire.  Two  of 
our  most  flourishing  cities  and  several  smaller  towns 
have  been  almost  wiped  out  in  this  way.  And  the 
fact  must  not  be  overlooked,  that  property  destroyed 
by  fire  is  totally  destroyed.  The  insurance  brings 
some  relief  to  the  individual  sufferer,  but  it  makes 
the  community  no  richer.  The  two  or  three  hundred 
milhons  of  weaith  that  were  consumed  by  the  great 
fires  in  Boston  and  Chicago  made  the  whole  nation 
so  much  the  poorer.  All  over  the  country  the 
incomes  of  men  were  reduced  by  this  destruction ; 
and  the  final  effect  has  been  to  depress  trade  and 
cripple  industry.       This  too  is  a  penalty  which  we 


Hard  Times  and  How  to  Ease   Them.       57 

arc  paying  for  our  carelessness  and  flimsincss  in  build- 
ing. If  you  sow  tinder-boxes  in  your  city  streets, 
you  shall  reap  conflagrations. 

Another  cause  of  the  hard  times  is  the  waste  of 
which  the  whole  people  are  guilty.  The  materials 
of  living  are  used  l)y  Ameri'^"nic  -vith  a  most  lavish 
prodigality.  Mr.  McCulloch^  writing  from  Europe 
only  a  short  time  since  about  the  unthriftiness  of  our 
countrymen,  expressed  the  opinion  that  the  people  of 
France  would  live  sumptuously  every  day  on  what  is 
wasted  every  day  by  the  people  of  America.  How 
to  make  the  most  of  what  he  has,  is  a  lesson  that 
hardly  anybody  in  this  country  has  learned.  If  the 
scien*^^  of  domestic  economy  were  as  fully  understood 
by  Americans  as  it  is  by  Frenchmen,  there  would  be 
much  less  talk  here  of  hard  times. 

^ot  only  by  a  careless  use  of  the  necessaries  of  life, 
but  also  by  a  reckless  consumption  of  that  which  is  at 
once  unnecessary  and  pernicious,  the  land  is  impov- 
erished. From  the  National  Bureau  of  Statistics  we 
learn  that  six  hundred  millions  of  dollars  are  annually 
expended  in  America  for  intoxicating  liquors.  This 
sum  exceeds  by  more  than  one  hundred  millions  of 
dollars  the  combined  gross  earnings  of  all  the  rail- 
roads in  the  United  States.  The  rum  bills  of  the 
nation  are  as  large  as  its  meat  bills.  Even  were  we 
to  say  nothing  about  the  moral  mischiefs  that  result 


58         Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

from  the  use  of  intoxicants,  this  waste  of  wealth  to 
which  they  lead  is  something  appalling.  And  any 
analysis  of  the  causes  of  our  hard  times,  that  left  this 
out  of  the  account,  would  be  altogether  incomplete. 

Close  akin  to  waste  is  extravagance.  The  one  is  a 
positive,  the  other  a  relative  term.  He  is  extravagant 
whose  rate  of  living  is  in  excess  of  his  income.  No 
matter  how  small  his  income  is,  if  it  is  sufficient  to 
support  life,  he  is  extravagant  if  he  lives  beyond  it, 
if  he  suffers  his  great  expectations  of  future  gains  to 
influence  his  present  expenditures.  And  that  is  what 
many  of  us  have  been  doing.  The  sudden  gains  that 
came  through  the  inflation  of  our  currency  com- 
pletely turned  the  heads  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
our  people,  and  led  them  to  adopt  a  scale  of  living 
which  it  was  quite  beyond  their  power  to  maintain. 
This  general  fact  has  been  well  illustrated  in  our 
own  neighborhood.  Sober  Connecticut  Valley  farm- 
ers, living  prudently  and  well  on  their  yearly  pro- 
ductions, suddenly  found  themselves  in  possession  of 
greatly  increased  incomes,  derived  from  the  cultiva- 
tion of  tobacco.  The  effect  of  this  was  to  raise  their 
ideas  of  life  enormously.  Their  wants  multiplied 
much  faster  than  their  wealth.  So  intoxicated  were 
they  with  the  prospects  before  them,  that  they  began 
to  spend  not  only  all  they  got  for  their  crops,  but  to 
mortgage  future  crops  for  luxuries.      Fine   houses, 


Hard  Times  and  How  to  Ease   Them.        59 

[)alatial  barns,  splendid  carriages,  pianos  and  pictures, 
silks  and  laces,  summer  tours,  —  all  the  accompani- 
ments of  opulence,  they  must  have ;  and  when  the 
money  was  not  on  hand  it  was  borrowed.  Going  at 
this  gait,  what  wonder  that,  by  the  sudden  halt  of 
an  unprosperous  year  or  two,  many  of  them  have 
been  thrown  into  bankruptcy  ? 

What  has  happened  to  these  neighbors  of  ours  is 
what  is  happening  on  a  larger  scale  to  the  whole 
people.  Encouraged  by  the  unsubstantial  prosperity 
created  by  the  increase  of  paper  money,  many  of  us 
have  been  living  at  too  rapid  a  rate ;  and  we  find  our- 
selves either  badly  in  debt,  or  else  in  sore  straits  be- 
cause we  cannot  keep  our  incomes  up  to  the  scale  of 
expenditure  we  have  established. 

For  the  same  reason,  many  extravagant  business 
ventures  have  been  taken.  There  seemed  for  a  while 
to  be  no  end  to  the  money  with  which  to  build  mills 
and  factories  and  railroads :  so  we  have  rushed  ahead, 
multiplying  our  manufacturing  facilities  beyond  all 
reasonable  demand  for  them,  building  railroads  that 
go  nowhere  in  particular,  and  sinking  our  easily 
gotten  gains  in  bottomless  enterprises. 

Well,  here  we  are,  at  the  end  of  our  tether.  Busi- 
ness is  dull,  salaries  are  cut  down,  workmen  are  out 
of  work ;  and  that  revival  of  trade,  prophesied  and 


6o         Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

waited  for  so  eagerly  for  now  these  five  years,  dees 
not  come.     What  are  we  going  to  do  about  it  ? 

Many  remedies  have  been  suggested.  "  Inflate 
the  currency,"  say  some.  "Give  us  more  money: 
money  is  all  we  need."  That  is  all  very  well;  but 
please  remember  that  notes  of  hand,  promises  to  pay, 
are  not  money.  We  shall  not  get  out  of  our  straits 
by  giving  or  taking  irredeemable  paper.  Our  pres- 
ent troubles  have  arisen  in  great  measure  from  the 
delusion  that  money-values  can  be  manufactured  with 
printing-presses.  More  of  the  same  delusion  will  not 
cure  us.  When  the  toper  gets  up  in  the  morning, 
dizzy  and  dejected,  he  thinks  that  what  he  wants  is 
another  glass  of  grog,  and  he  generally  goes  and  gets 
it ;  but  it  does  not  cure  him. 

Others  advise  the  stoppage  of  production.  It  is 
not  poverty,  but  the  embarrassment  of  riches,  that 
troubles  us,  they  say.  And  if  we  could  all  make  up 
our  minds  to  wait  a  little  while,  till  we  have  used  up 
the  stock  on  hand,  things  would  go  on  again  briskly. 
But  if  waiting  a  little  while  would  do  us  a  little  good, 
I  cannot  see  why  waiting  a  long  while  would  not  do 
us  more  good ;  and  on  this  principle,  if  all  the  people 
in  the  world  should  sit  down  and  suck  their  thumbs 
for  ten  years,  they  would  all,  at  the  end  of  that  time, 
be  on  the  high  road  to  fortune.  Perhaps,  however, 
it  is  not  a  general  but  a  partial  stoppage  of  business 


Hard  Times  and  How  to  Ease   Them.        61 

that  is  recommended.  But  who  shall  stop  ?  Moro- 
over,  those  who  cease  from  their  labor  must  live,  oi 
course,  while  they  are  waiting.  Who  will  support 
them? 

No :  the  notion  that  the  idleness  of  all  or  of  anj 
would  give  us  easier  times,  is  one  of  the  flimsiest  of 
delusions.  It  may  be  that  some  branches  of  produc- 
tion are  overworked.  If  so,  part  of  those  who  find 
employment  in  them  had  better  turn  their  hands  to 
something  else;  but  we  shall  not  mend  matters  by 
sitting  down  and  waiting.  Why,  suppose  that  in 
every  branch  of  industry  the  over-production  was  so 
great  that  the  supply  of  every  thing  was  enormously 
in  excess  of  the  demand  for  it,  —  so  much  in  excess 
that  all  the  ordinary  and  extraordinary  objects  of 
desire  could  be  obtained  as  air  and  water  and  light 
are  obtained,  without  money  and  without  price;  so 
that  houses  and  furniture,  and  pictures  and  books,  and 
food  and  clothing,  and  horses  and  carriages  were  to 
be  had  for  the  asking.  Would  the  times  be  hard 
then  ?  Morally  they  would,  no  doubt ;  for  the  whole 
people,  liberated  for  a  time  from  the  need  of  work, 
would  betake  themselves  to  all  sorts  of  misclnef :  but 
economically  nobody  would  be  likely  to  esteem  such 
times  as  those  hard  times.  The  nearer  we  can 
approximate  to  that  condition  of  things,  the  easier 
will  be  our  finances.     And  we  approximate  to  this 


62         Working  People  and  their  Employers. 


condition,  not  by  sitting  still  and  waiting,  but  by 
working  diligently  to  increase  the  world's  store  of 
wealth ;  by  working,  of  course,  so  far  as  we  are  able, 
to  supply  those  things  of  which  there  is  the  greatest 
deficiency,  and  for  which  there  is  the  greatest 
demand. 

The  remedies  we  have  mentioned  are  pure  quack- 
ery. By  no  such  superficial  method  shall  we  ever 
cure  our  complaint.  The  process  of  recovery  will 
be  slow,  and  it  cannot  be  greatly  hastened.  The 
analysis  we  have  made  of  the  causes  of  the  hard 
times  shows  this  very  clearly.  You  don't  recover 
from  a  typhoid  fever  in  twenty-four  hours ;  not  even 
with  the  aid  of  quack-doctors  and  travelling  medi- 
cine-men. What,  then,  are  the  only  effectual  reme- 
dies? 

In  the  first  place,  in  direct  contradiction  to  that 
counsel  we  were  considering  a  moment  ago,  let 
everybody  keep  at  work  if  he  is  now  employed ;  or, 
if  not,  find  something  to  do,  and  go  at  it.  If  too 
many  are  working  at  your  particular  trade  or  calling, 
so  that  you 'cannot  get  a  living  by  it,  find  if  you  can 
some  other  occupation,  even  though  it  may  be  less 
congenial,  that  will  give  you  a  livelihood,  and  go  to 
work  in  that.  Don't  sit  round,  whoever  you  are, 
waiting  for  something  to  turn  up.  Take  hold  of 
something,  and  turn  it  up.     Shovel  dirt,  sj  w  wood, 


Hard  Times  and  How  to  Ease   Them,       63 

do  any  kind  of  reputable  work,  rather  than  abide  in 
idleness.  Your  work,  if  it  be  honest  work,  will  not 
only  replenish  your  own  revenues,  but  it  will  help  to 
make  the  whole  community  richer,  and  thus  to  hasten 
tlie  return  of  better  times. 

Perhaps  you  feel  yourself  incapable  of  any  othe: 
kind  of  work  than  that  you  have  followed  hitherto. 
It  is  one  of  the  drawbacks  of  our  present  system  of 
dividing  and  subdividing  labor,  that  the  industrial 
training  of  our  workmen  is  kept  within  very  narrow 
limits,  and  men  are  incapacitated  for  any  variety  of 
pursuits.  One  who  has  spent  all  his  days  in  filing 
the  point  of  a  screw,  or  in  making  the  head  of  a  pin, 
hardly  knows  what  to  do  when  there  are  no  more 
screws  to  file,  or  pins  to  head.  Fertility  of  resource 
is  a  trait  of  American  character  that  is  decaying,  I 
fear.  The  number  of  those  who  are  Yankees  by 
trade,  and  work  at  it,  is  not  so  large  as  once  it  was. 
We  must  try  to  keep  out  of  this  bondage  to  a  single 
branch  of  work.  We  must  not  forget  how  to  "  turn 
ourselv«5S,"  —  a  good  old  Yankee  phrase.  We  must 
keep  our  eyes  and  ears  open,  and  our  hands  practised 
too,  if  we  can,  in  more  than  one  kind  of  work. 
"  Some  things  can  be  done,  as  well  as  rthers." 

You  will  not  all  relish  the  suggestion,  but  the  truth 
is  that  a  good  many  of  you  must  go  back  to  the  work 
of  farming.     The  mills  and  the  shops  and  the  stores 


64        Wc/rking  People  and  their  Employers, 

are  not  now,  and  will  not  soon  be,  able  to  furnish 
with  employment  all  of  those  who  have  hitherto 
been  supported  by  them  ;  and  there  are  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  work-people  and  trades-people  in  our 
towns  who  must  find  employment  on  the  farms.  The 
prospect  may  not  be  a  pleasant  one,  but  the  alterna- 
tive is  starvation. 

One  hundred  years  ago  the  cities  of  the  United 
States  contained  only  one-thirtieth  of  the  population : 
now  one-fifth  of  all  our  people  are  in  the  cities.  The 
growth  of  our  city  population  has  been  quite  too 
rapid  for  the  national  health. 

Toward  the  large  commercial  and  manufacturing 
towns,  the  tide  of  population  has  been  steadily  pour- 
ing now  these  many  years.  Farm-life  is  dull  and 
solitary,  farm-work  is  irksome  and  fatiguing,  the 
gains  of  farming  are  slow :  therefore  the  young  men 
and  the  young  women  have  deserted  the  farms,  and 
have  sought  employment  in  the  shops  and  the  stores 
and  the  factories.  All  over  New  England,  the  rural 
districts  have  been  depopulated  ;  in  hundreds  of  out- 
lying towns  there  are  fewer  inhabitants  to-day  than 
there  were  twenty  years  ago.  The  old  houses  where- 
the  fathers  of  the  present  generation  lived  and  throve 
are  falling  down  in  ruins ;  thousands  of  acres  that 
once  were  under  tillage  are  covered  now  with  brush- 
wood      Of  those   who   began   life   on   these    New 


Hard  Times  and  How  to  Ease   Thcni.       65 

England  farms,  a  part  have  emigrated  to  the  West, 
but  a  large  number  are  in  the  Eastern  eities  and 
villages.  City  life  has  for  the  mereurial  Yankee  a 
strong  attraction.  He  likes  to  mix  with  the  crowd ; 
he  wants  to  be  within  reach  of  the  telegraph-office 
and  the  daily  journal ;  he  greatly  prefers  his  sensa- 
tions fresh  and  at  first  hand.  What  is  more,  possi- 
bilities of  rapid  accumulation  are  not  found  upon  the 
firms :  it  is  only  in  the  combinations  of  commercial 
life  that  they  are  revealed  ;  and  though  the  statistics 
show  that  the  prizes  in  this  lottery  are  few  compared 
with  the  blanks,  every  true-born  American  cherishes 
a  lively  faith  that  a  prize  will  come  to  him.  At  any 
rate,  he  wants  to  be  on  hand  when  the  wheel  goes 
round. 

For  all  these  reasons  the  agricultural  districts  of 
the  East  have  been  steadily  losing  their  population, 
and  the  towns  have  been  growing  at  their  expense. 
Even  during  the  period  of  inflation,  many  of  these 
ambitious  fortune-seekers  have  gained  but  a  pre- 
carious livelihood ;  and  now  multitudes  of  them  aie 
out  of  work  and  out  of  funds,  and  their  credit  is 
growing  poorer  every  day.  The  fact  they  must 
look  in  the  face  is  just  this:  that  trade  is  going  to 
recover  very  slowly  ;  that  a  great  nmny  factories  and 
stores  are  closing,  and  will  not  open  again  for  many 
a  day ;  and  that  the  clerks  and  operatives,  male  ai  d 


66         Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

female,  who  have  been  supported  by  them,  must  get 
their  living  in  some  other  way,  or  starve. 

By  the  great  majority  of  these  the  thought  of  seek- 
ing employment  in  the  country  is  never  entertained. 
I  lately  heard  a  young  man,  who  had  long  been  look- 
ing in  vain  for  a  clerkship,  say  that  if  he  did  not  soon 
succeed  he  should  try  to  get  a  situation  as  conductor 
on  a  horse-car.  He  did  not  seem  to  be  aware  that 
thousands  of  other  young  men  in  the  same  condition 
are  piteously  begghig  for  the  same  kind  of  work,  and 
that  there  would  scarcely  be  room  in  the  horse-cars 
for  all  the  idle  clerks  and  operatives  to  ride. 

The  thought  of  turning  away  from  the  excitements 
of  town-life  to  the  coarse  fare,  the  hard  work,  and  the 
plodding  life  of  the  farm,  may  be  unwelcome  ;  but 
would  not  this  be  infinitely  better  than  the  anxious 
and  aimless  life  which  many  of  you  are  leading  ?  If 
you  are  compelled  to  work  for  wages,  the  money 
that  you  will  receive  for  a  month's  labor  on  the  farm 
will  not  be  much  ;  but  you  will  have  your  board, 
your  clothing  will  cost  you  but  little,  your  other  per- 
sonal expenses  will  be  next  to  nothing,  and  you  can 
save  nearly  all  of  the  money  that  you  receive.  The 
work  of  the  farm  is  much  less  severe  than  it  used  to 
be  when  some  of  us  were  boys ;  and  the  conditions 
of  the  farmer's  life  are  in  many  ways  less  narrow  and 
hard  than  once  they  were ;  but  even  if  this  were  not 


Hard  Times  ana  How  to   Ease    Tlwm.        67 

the  case,  the  young  man  who  would  not  work  on  a 
farm  for  ten  duUars  a  month  and  his  keeping,  rather 
tlian  hang  about  the  city  waiting  for  work,  begging 
or  borrowing  tlie  means  of  subsistence,  or  running 
up  a  board-bill  that  he  has  no  visible  means  of  pay- 
ing, is  a  poor  specimen  of  manhood. 

If  you  have  a  little  money  left,  or  can  get  a  little 
credit,  there  are  plenty  of  flxrms  that  can  be  bought 
at  extremely  low  figures.  With  hard  work  and 
prudent  management  you  can  obtain  a  living  upon 
such  a  place,  and  lay  by  something  every  year.  The 
prices  of  produce,  especially  of  dairy  produce,  and 
of  fruits  and  vegetables  as  well,  are  high  enough  in 
all  our  markets  to  afford  any  farmer  who  raises  them 
a  good  living. 

But  you  say  that  the  farmers  talk  about  hard  times 
quite  as  loudly  as  the  people  in  the  towns,  and  that 
many  of  them  are  heard  complaining  that  they  cannot 
get  a  living.  That  may  be  true ;  but  the  farmers, 
like  all  the  rest  of  us,  have  been  living  extrava- 
gantly ;  they  have  mortgaged  their  farms  for  larg(i 
sums  to  obtain  luxuries  they  could  not  afford  ;  'aw^X 
now  they  find  it  hard  to  pay  the  interest  on  these 
mortgages,  and  keep  up  the  scale  of  expenditure  to 
which  they  have  accustomed  themselves.  If  they 
would  be  content  to  live  as  plainly  as  the   farmers 


68         Working  People  and  thei/  Employers, 

used  to  live  thirty  years  ago,  they  could  meet  their 
expenses  and  pay  their  debts. 

The  opportunity  that  is  offered  to  the  idle  people 
of  the  cities,  of  becoming  proprietors  and  cultivators 
of  the  soil,  is  one  they  cannot  afford  to  overlook. 
They  ought  to  understand  that  the  gains  of  agricul- 
ture are  slow  ;  that  it  is  only  by  hard  labor  and 
great  prudence  that  any  savings  are  made ;  but 
industry  and  economy,  united  with  good  judgment, 
will  insure  any  household  a  comfortable  and  sure 
support.  And  no  remedy  for  the  hard  times  would 
be  more  radical  than  a  transfer  of  the  unemployed 
multitudes  of  our  town  population  to  productive 
labor  upon  the  farms. 

■yin  the  second  place,  whether  you  live  in  the  city 
or  in  the  country,  you  must  reverse  the  bad  tenden- 
cies of  the  past  years,  and  practise  economy.  Learn 
the  wickedness  of  waste,  and  avoid  it ;  learn  the  duty 
of  living  within  your  means,  and  do  it.  The  scale  of 
expenditure  needs  revising  in  many  quarters  among 
poor  folks,  and  among  poor  rich  folks  too.  There 
are  carriages,  fineries,  all  sorts  of  luxurious  accompa- 
niments of  life,  that  must  be  heroically  discontinued. 
Perhaps  some  of  you  working-people  may  be 
inclined  to  say  that  you  never  indulge  in  any  super- 
fluities. I  don't  know  about  that.  The  bare  neces- 
baries  of  life  cost  very  little.     Henry  Thorcau,   the 


Hard  Times  and  Hodu  to   Ease    Them.        69 


Concord  liemiit,  lias  shown  us  just  how  expensive 
they  are.  His  living  for  eight  months,  in  the  house 
built  with  his  own  hands  in  Walden  woods,  cost  him 
$33.87i,  — a  little  more  than  four  dollars  a  month! 
He  gives  us  all  the  figures ;  and  we  can  take  his  word 
for  their  accuracy,  for  he  was  an  honest  man.  Those 
were  not  starved  and  barren  months  by  any  means : 
when  he  was  not  working  in  his  bean-field,  he  was 
busy  with  his  books,  or  studying  with  quick  and 
sympathetic  appreciation  the  wonderful  things  in  the 
world  around  him ;  and  the  result  is  a  book  that  will 
rank  very  high  among  the  products  of  American 
literature. 

Still  I  would  not  counsel  you  to  try  living  in  a 
fashion  quite  so  primitive  as  his.  You  do  not  want 
to  deny  yourselves  all  the  comforts  of  life ;  and  you 
have  a  perfect  right  to  take  pleasure  in  some  things 
that  most  men  regard  as  luxuries.  You  ought  not  to 
starve  your  minds,  for  one  thing.  If  you  are  ever  to 
be  emancipated  utterly  from  bondage  to  toil,  it  will 
be  through  mental  training.  Your  tastes  that  arc 
intellectual  or  spiritual  you  ought  to  develop ;  and 
I  counsel  yon  to  do  so,  even  if  you  are  obliged  to 
wear  plainer  clothes,  to  deny  yourselves  several 
circuses  and  nigger-minstrel  shows  in  the  course  of 
the  year,  and  to  put  yourselves  on  very  short  allow- 
ance of  tobacv'^-o  and  rum. 


70         Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

^  In  the  third  place,  it  is  good  counsel  to  forbear 
comparing  yoar  lot  with  that  of  your  more  fortunate 
neighbors.  Many  of  our  discomforts  are  relative,  not 
positive.  It  is  not  always  because  you  are  in  abso- 
lute want  that  you  are  troubled :  it  is  often  because 
others  about  you  have  many  things  that  you  have 
not.  If  you  could  be  put,  with  your  present  strait- 
ened income,  into  a  neighborhood  where  all  the  people 
were  poorer  than  yourself,  you  would  be  much  less 
distressed  on  account  of  its  straitness.  Times  would 
be  easier  with  you  right  away. 
;  In  the  fourth  place,  it  may  be  that,  without  much 
thinking  of  your  neighbors,  you  are  very  much  in 
the  habit  of  looking  upon  objects  that  are  beyond 
your  reach,  and  worrying  because  you  cannot  hav^e 
them.  It  is  the  things  you  have  not  and  cannot  get 
that  you  think  about  most.  How  would  it  do  to 
think  a  little  more  of  what  you  have,  or  may  have, 
and  a  little  less  of  what  you  cannot  have  ?  Wouldn't 
it  make  times  easier  with  you  if  you  gave  more 
study  to  what  you  can  get  out  of  your  income,  and 
less  to  what  you  can't  get  out  of  it  ?  I  want  to  take 
this  counsel  to  myself  while  I  commend  it  to  you. 
Suppose  we  all  say  to  ourselves,  '  This  year,  or  this 
month,  we  shall  have  to  spend  on  our  living  so  much; 
that  is  all  we  can  count  on.  Now,  let  us  see  how  far 
we  can  make  it  ^o ;  how  much  good  we  can  get  out 


Hard  Times  and  How  to  Ease    Them.       71 

uf  ic,  —  how  many  comforts  for  the  home,  how  much 
culture,  how  much  stimulus  for  what  is  best  in  our 
natures,  how  much  bounty  wherewith  to  make  other 
liearts  glad  who  are  in  worse  straits  than  we  are." 
There  is  an  immense  amount  of  happiness,  and  profit 
(00,  to  be  derived  from  very  small  revenues,  if  one 
sets  to  work  in  that  way  to  utilize  them.  This  phi- 
losophy is  as  old  as  the  days  of  Diogenes,  but  it 
needs  to  be  enforced  upon  every  generation. 

Doubtless  you  think  that  my  prescription  for  your 
financial  ills  is  a  very  simple  one,  and  indeed  it  is; 
but  if  you  will  try  it  faithfully,  I  know  it  will  do  you 
good ;  and  I  haven't  much  flxith  in  any  other  mode  of 
treatment.  The  whole  country  has  been  waiting  for 
a  sensational  revival  of  business,  but  it  will  not  come. 
The  only  relief  for  our  present  distresses  will  come 
through  mdustry  and  frugality ;  through  a  chastening 
of  our  ambitious  notions  of  life,  and  the  cultivation 
of  simpler  tastes  and  a  more  contented  spirit. 

And,  if  to  contentment  we  can  add  godliness,  that, 
[  have  authority  for  saying,  will  be  a  great  gain. 
What  I  mean  by  this  is  the  bearing  of  our  burdens, 
whether  they  be  of  wealth  or  of  want,  as  in  the 
sight  of  God.  The  maxims  of  a  sound  philosophy 
are  not  to  be  despised :  they  serve  us  often  for  guid- 
ance in  this  world.  But  there  is  something  better 
than  philosophy ;  and  that  is  the  knowledge  that,  over 


72         Working  People  and  their  Employ  ^.rs, 

all  these  affairs  of  ours,  One  is  watching  whose  wis- 
dom is  perfect  to  direct,  whose  strength  is  infinite  to 
keep  and  to  deliver.  If  we  can  only  come  into  that 
assurance ;  if  we  can  only  believe  with  all  our  hearts, 
that  our  heavenly  Father  loves  us  and  cares  for  us ; 
that,  so  long  as  we  place  our  confidence  in  him  and 
try  to  do  his  will,  nothing  can  go  amiss  with  us,  —  we 
shall  not  have  any  more  hard  times.  "  Trust  in  the 
Lord,  and  do  good :  so  shalt  thou  dwell  in  the  land, 
and  verily  thou  shalt  be  fed."  If  you  will  only 
believe  that,  and  make  that  faith  the  central  principle 
of  your  life,  all  these  hard  questions  about  the  where- 
withal of  life  will  cease  to  vex  your  soul.  You  may 
not  be  rich ;  but  you  will  know,  as  Paul  knew,  how  to 
be  in  want  as  well  as  how  to  abound ;  and  one  kind 
of  knowledge  is  worth  just  as  much  as  the  other, 
has  just  the  same  sweet  comfort  in  it. 

I  do  not  mean  that  this  trust  will  ever  release  you 
from  diligence  or  prudence :  I  mean  that  when  you 
have  done  your  best,  and  chosen  the  path  that  seems 
to  you  safest,  it  will  deliver  you  from  anxiety  and 
despondency,  and  fill  your  soul  with  a  perfect  peace. 
If  you  can  find  this  sure  support,  and  rest  upon  it, 
the  sting  will  be  taken  from  your  troubles.  When 
the  work  stops,  and  the  supplies  are  cut  off,  and  the 
little  hoard  is  shrinking,  it  is  good  to  think  that  tliere 
is  One  who  knows  all  about  our  needs,  and  wlio  has 


Hard   Tivics  and  How  to  Ease    TLcrn.        73 

promised  to  take  care  of  us  if  we  will  coiuiiiil  our 
lives  to  him.  To  say  that  tliere  is  rest  and  comfort 
by  and  by  for  those  who  trust  in  him,  is  to  tell  but 
part  of  the  truth :  there  is  rest  and  comfort  for  them 
liere  and  now 


IV. 

RISING  IN   THE    WORLD. 

For  the  virtue  of  thrift,  the  duty  of  rising  in  the 
world,  we  may  find  good  warrant  in  high  places. 
There  is  not  only  a  command  to  work  in  the  Deca- 
logue, but  there  are  many  other  commands  scattered 
through  the  Bible,  which  set  before  us  our  duty  to 
live  and  thrive  by  our  work.  The  first  word  spoken 
to  man  by  his  Maker  was  a  command  to  replenish 
the  earth,  and  subdue  it,  —  to  fill  it  not  only  with 
inhabitants,  but  with  wealth  for  the  use  of  its  inhabit- 
ants. Along  with  all  the  warnings  against  setting 
our  hearts  on  riches,  and  putting  our  trust  in  them, 
there  are  many  other  commands,  which  either  ex- 
pressly or  by  implication  recognize  it  as  a  duty  that 
every  man  owes  to  himself,  to  his  household,  and  to 
his  neighbors,  tc  strive  after  temporal  prosperity 
74 


Rising  in  the   World,  75 


Not  to  mention  the  exhortations  found  in  the  New 
Testament  epistles  and  in  the  Psalms  of  David,  we 
have  one  whole  book,  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  whose 
inspiration  is  not  generally  questioned,  in  which  the 
duty  to  be  diligent  and  prosper  is  set  forth  with  a 
boundless  wealth  of  illustration. 

It  is  a  duty  that  many  of  you  do  not  need  to  be 
instructed  in.  The  fault  of  the  great  majority  of 
those  who  hear  me  is  not  that  they  do  not  value 
prosperity  enough,  but  that  they  value  it  far  too 
highly ;  not  that  they  have  no  ambition  to  rise  in  the 
world,  but  that  this  ambition  absorbs  their  energies 
and  consumes  their  lives.  The  lazy  races  of  the- 
Orient  are  in  far  greater  need  of  Solomon's  pungent 
proverbs  about  slothfulness  and  thriftlessness  than  the 
eager,  pushing  people  of  New  England  can  possibly 
be.  The  motives  to  accumulation  are  always  present 
in  our  society,  and  need  to  be  supplied  by  sugges- 
tions to  very  few  minds. 

There  are  several  errors,  however,  concerning  this 
matter,  into  which  men  are  led  by  their  eagerness 
and  their  indolence,  and  which  it  may  be  well  to 
notice.  The  working  people  before  me  —  most  if 
not  all  of  them  —  are  anxious  enough  to  prosper ; 
but  it  is  not  at  all  improbable  that  the  ideas  of  many 
of  them,  as  to  what  prosperity  is,  are  somewhat  incor- 
rect ;  and  that  some,  if  called  on  to  tell  what  rising 


76         Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

in  the  world  implies,  would  give  loose  and  crude 
definitions. 

In  the  minds  of  some  persons,  this  notion  may  be 
lurking,  that  rising  in  the  world  involves  the  cessa- 
tion of  labor.  They  are  hoping,  in  time,  to  rise  so 
high  that  they  shall  be  above  work.  In  the  happy 
elevation  to  which  they  hope  to  climb,  the  noises  of 
tools  and  the  clatter  of  machinery  are  no  more  heard. 
Now,  this,  as  we  saw  in  the  first  chapter,  is  a  false 
view  of  life.  It  is  not  by  going  up  the  ladder  of 
true  progress  and  prospeiity,  but  by  going  down, 
that  one  gets  away  from  work.  In  the  scale  of 
advancement  that  God  has  marked  for  the  race,  there 
is  no  place  where  work  is  omitted.  Money  may 
deliver  one  over  to  idleness,  and  sometimes  does ; 
but  let  him  remember,  when  he  gets  there,  that,  since 
he  left  the  point  where  he  stood  when  he  worked 
every  day  for  his  living,  he  has  been  going  the  down- 
ward road. 

^  You  do  not  rise  in  the  world  by  ceasing  to  be  a 
producer,  or  a  helper  of  your  fellows.  Your  powers 
of  body  and  of  mind  were  given  you  to  be  used  with 
steady  and  beneficent  purpose ;  and  you  do  not  rise 
by  suffering  them  to  rust  in  indolence,  or  to  run  to 
waste  in  constant  pleasuring.  Whoever  lives  without 
work  is  living  a  dependent  life,  —  a  pauper  life,  in- 
deed, whether  he  lives  in  a  poorhouse  or  in  a  jjalace. 


Rising  in  the   World.  77 


There  is  essental  degradation  in  sueh  a  life  ay  that; 
and  they  are  to  be  pitied  who  have  gone  down  to  it, 
wliether  they  went  down  by  the  road  of  penury  or 
the  road  of  plenty. 

All  the  material  comforts  and  values  that  are  en 
joyed  by  persons  who  consider  themselves  able  to 
live  without  labor  must  be  procured  for  them  by 
labor;  cannot  be  produced  in  any  other  way.  Tlie 
food,  the  apparel,  the  dwelling,  the  furniture,  all  that 
supports  and  adorns  life,  is  the  product  of  labor. 
The  labor  of  the  farmer,  the  miner,  the  fisherman, 
the  lumberman,  produces  the  raw  materials  of  wealth  ; 
the  labor  of  the  artisan  turns  them  into  useful  forms ; 
the  labor  of  the  merchant  and  the  common  carrier 
transports  and  distributes  and  exchanges  them ;  the 
labor  of  the  banker  provides  for  the  transfer  and  re- 
distribution of  the  money  that  constitutes  the  medium 
of  exchange  ;  and  so  on,  in  a  thousand  ways  not 
mentioned,  men  are  working  together  to  increase  the 
store  of  the  world's  possessions. 

So  also,  as  regards  the  immaterial  wealth  of  the 
world,  the  stock  of  knowledge  and  truth  that  the 
world  contains :  it  is  all  the  product  of  labor.  True, 
there  is  knowledge  that  comes  by  inspiration ;  but  not 
even  this,  as  men  now  arc,  can  be  turned  to  account 
for  the  purposes  of  life,  without  hard  work.  The 
greater  part  of  the  knowledge   the  world  coi.taiis 


jS         Worki7ig  People  and  their  Employers. 

ib  acquired  and  disseminated  by  labor.  To  some  is 
given  the  work  of  original  investigation  in  science  or 
ill  philosophy;  to  others,  the  work  of  research  into 
I  lie  lore  of  past  ages ;  to  others,  the  work  of  criti- 
cism ;  to  others,  the  work  of  teaching :  to  all,  the 
duty  of  standing  up  for  the  truth  so  far  as  it  is 
known,  of  waging  warfare  upon  ignorance  and  iniqui 
ty,  of  publishing  salvation  from  the  lust  of  the  flesh 
and  the  lust  of  the  eye  and  the  pride  of  life.  And 
this  is  work  certainly  not  less  honorable  or  produc- 
tive than  that  of  the  farmer  or  the  artisan.  Its  prod- 
ucts are  not  seen  and  temporal :  they  are  unseen 
and  eternal ;  but  they  are  not  therefore  valueless. 

In  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  great  classes  of 
workers,  —  those  who  are  adding  to  the  material 
wealth  of  the  world,  or  those  who  are  enhancing  its 
immaterial  treasures,  —  every  able-bodied  and  sound- 
minded  adult  human  being  ought  to  be  found.  We 
a.re  all  bound  together  in  society  by  a  bond  so  close, 
a  relation  so  intimate,  that  each  is  affected  by  the 
unfaithfulness  of  every  other.  If  any  man  commits 
a  crime,  he  injures  not  only  himself  and  the  person 
against  whom  the  crime  was  committed  and  the 
immediate  circle  of  kinsfolk  or  acquaintance,  but  he 
injures  every  other  person  in  the  land ;  for  he  does 
what  he  can  to  make  society  less  secure  and  life  less 
desh-able.     So,    if   a    person   lives   in   indolence,    it 


Rlst?ig  in  the    World.  79 


matters  not  how  large  his  aeeumulations  may  Ije,  tlie 
whole  commuiiity  is  the  loser  by  his  course,  lie  is 
adding  nothing  to  the  stock  of  the  world's  posses- 
sions :  he  is  doing  what  he  can,  and  that  is  some- 
times a  vast  deal,  to  diminish  their  quantity;  he  is 
a  destroyer,  instead  of -being  a  producer.  From  the 
great  commonwealth  of  workers,  which  ought  to  in- 
clude all  men,  he  is  an  alien.  In  the  best  state  of 
society  no  such  person  will  be  found. 
:  Just  here,  one  mistake  must  be  pointed  out. 
u'here  are  many,  who  to  a  super jScial  view  might 
seem  to  be  idle,  that  are  really  industrious  and  useful 
workers.  The  proprietor  of  a  large  manufacturing 
establishment  may  be  regarded  by  the  girl  that 
works  at  the  loom  as  a  very  lazy  man.  He  sits  in  his 
office,  and  talks  ;  he  rides  round  in  his  carriage  ;  he 
goes  down  to  the  city  now  and  then  ;  he  seems,  to 
some  of  the  hands  in  the  mill,  to  have  a  very  easy 
time :  whereas  the  fact  may  be  that  no  person  in  his 
employ  works  so  hard  as  he  does.  One  of  the  most 
useful  as  well  as  one  of  the  most  difficult  and  weari- 
some kinds  of  work  is  to  organize  work  for  others. 
"^I'hose  who  are  actively  and  successfully  carrying  on 
jusiness  are  not  idle,  though  they  may  perform  but 
little  manual  labor.  The  woman  who  organizes  and 
manages  prudently  the  work  of  a  large  household 
may  be  a  diligent  and  useful   worker,  even  though 


8o        Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

she  may  not  do  any  large  share  of  the  housework 
with  her  own  hands. 

It  is  not  therefore  of  such  as  these  that  I  am 
speaking  ;  but  rather  of  those  who  by  inheritance  or 
by  previous  acquisition  have  gained  property  which 
gi^'es  them  an  income,  and  who  are  doing  nothing 
Ijut  amusing  themselves.  This  is  a  kind  of  life  that 
some  are  leading,  and  for  which  many  are  longing. 
It  is  not  the  right  kind  of  life  to  live,  and  it  is  a 
foolish  thing  to  long  for  it. 

^^thers  think  to  rise  in  the  world  by  exchanging 
the  calling  in  which  they  have  been  trained  for  some 
other  which  to  them  seems  more  honorable.  An 
ambitious  young  mechanic  says  to  himself,  "  As  a 
mere  skilled  laborer  I  never  can  amount  to  any 
thing :  if  I  am  to  rise  in  the  world,  I  must  get  into 
something  else,  —  into  mercantile  life,  or  into  one  of 
the  learned  professions."  But  such  a  change  as  this 
is  by  no  means  certain  to  be  a  change  for  the  better. 
The  mechanic  may  be  well  fitted  to  excel  in  his 
calling,  and  totally  unfit  for  the  calling  to  which  he 
aspires ;  and,  if  this  be  the  case,  he  is  not  elevated, 
but  rather  degraded  by  the  change.  A  good  tin- 
smith is  not  rising  in  the  world  when  he  becomes  a 
poor  lawyer.  A  good  bricklayer  is  going  down,  not 
up,  when  he  makes  of  himself  an  indifferent  journalist. 
When  a  first-rate  shoemaker  turns  into  a  fourth-ratq 


Rtszftg  in  the    World.  8i 


preacher,  he  throws  himself  away.  No  calling  can 
be  so  sacred  or  so  honorable  as  to  confer  distinction 
upon  a  man  not  qualified  to  discharge  its  duties. 
All  good  work  is  honorable  and  sacred  ;  all  poor, 
slipshod  work  is  despicable  and  profane  :  and  in  the 
callings  that  are  most  responsible  and  influential,  it  is 
even  more  to  be  detested  than  in  those  that  are  less 
conspicuous. 

^It  is  therefore  not  clear  that  if  you  abandon  one 
calling,  and  choose  another  which  to  you  seems  high- 
er, you  will  be  going  upward.  Your  elevation  is 
determined  not  so  much  by  the  land  of  work  you 
are  doing  (provided  always  it  is  honest  work)  as 
by  the  ivay  you  are  doing  it.  The  highest  calling  in 
which  you  can  engage  is  the  one  whose  work  you 
can  do  best. 

It  ought  not  to  be  necessary  to  add  that  no  man 
can  truly  be  said  to  rise  who  by  dishonorable  means 
gains  for  himself  wealth,  or  notoriety,  or  power. 
To  none  but  fools  does  such  a  career  ever  seem  to 
be  any  thing  but  a  swift  decline  and  a  fatal  fall.  The 
theatric  height  to  which  the  bad  man  thus  attains  is 
not  only  to  all  right  vision  the  means  for  displaying 
his  own  disgrace,  but  it  is  certain  in  the  end  to  ap- 
pear so  even  to  the  fools  that  once  applauded  him. 

N^t  many  years  ago,  there  lived  in  the  city  of  New 
York  a  chairmaker  —  a  fairly  decent  man,  no  doubt  — 


82         Working  People  and  their  Employers, 


by  the  name  of  Tweed,  Dissatisfied  with  his  calling 
and  ambitious  to  rise  in  the  world,  he  took  to  poli 
tics.  By  all  the  black  arts  known  to  the  politician 
of  the  period,  he  rose  rapidly  to  power.  The  me- 
tropolis of  the  continent  was  subject  to  his  will :  he 
dictated  its  laws,  he  appointed  its  magistrates  an(] 
judges,  he  filled  his  lap  with  wealth  plundered  from 
its  treasury.  Not  only  within  the  metropolis,  but 
throughout  the  State  and  the  nation,  his  power  was 
felt  and  feared  ;  he  was  thought  able  —  this  cabinet- 
maker —  not  only  to  make  municipal  and  guberna- 
torial and  even  presidential  chairs,  but  to  fill  them 
with  the  creatures  of  his  choice.  They  began  to 
talk  of  erecting  a  brazen  image  of  him  down  in  New 
York ;  and  there  were  plenty  that  were  making 
ready  to  fall  down  and  worship  it.  ''Behold  the 
eminence,"  many  fools  were  crying,  "  to  which  this 
man  has  climbed !  "  And  everywhere  base  men 
began  to  do  likewise.  The  same  bad  arts  every- 
where began  to  creep  into  our  politics.  To  use  the 
rumshops  and  the  rufiians  in  corruptiDg  the  voters 
and  packing  the  caucuses  ;  to  manipulate  all  the  vile 
elements  of  society  in  such  a  manner  that  the  ballot- 
box  should  paralyze  the  intelligent  will  of  the  people, 
instead  of  expressing  it,  —  this  began  to  be  only  toe 
common  ;  and  good  men  either  spoke  lightly  of  it, 
as  one  of  the  inseparable  accompaniments  of  politics. 


Rising  ill  the   World,  83 


or  else  shook  their  heads  gravely,  and  said,  "It's  all 
wrong,  but  what  can  you  do  ?  You  can't  help  your- 
selves.    Look  at  Tweed  and  his  Ring !  " 

But  how  long  did  they  stand  on  that  bad  eminence 
to  be  looked  at,  the  wonder-stock  of  fools,  the  scon; 
of  wise  men?  Only  a  very  little  space.  The  cup 
of  their  iniquities,  liow  soon  it  was  full !  And  then 
the  breath  of  God's  avenging  wrath  blew  upon  them ; 
and  now  where  are  they  ?  The  once  proud  impera- 
tor,  stripped  of  his  honors,  driven  from  his  offices, 
hides,  a  condemned  convict,  from  the  sight  of  men ; 
he  who  once  had  his  choice  of  palaces  now  counts  it 
a  great  mercy  that  he  may  choose  among  prisons ; 
his  property  is  scattered  ;  his  house  is  desolate  ;  his 
fellow- conspirators  are  fugitives  and  vagabonds  in  the 
earth. 

Ay,  look  at  Tweed  and  his  Ring !  Look,  all  you 
base  politicians,  who  have  striven  to  copy  in  your 
small  way  his  bad  example !  Look,  all  you  cowardly 
citizens,  who  think  such  things  are  inseparable  from 
politics  and  cannot  be  helped !  Look,  all  you  lowly 
mechanics  and  laborers,  who  are  discontented  some- 
times with  your  condition,  and  burn  to  rise,  no  matter 
how,  to  higher  places!  Look,  and  learn  that  the 
stars  in  their  courses  fight  against  the  man  that 
makes  war  upon  righteousness ;  and  that  there  is  no 
pit  so  deep  as  that  into  which  the  creature  falls,  who, 


84         Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

like   Lucifer,   would  climb  to  place  and  power  bv 
defying  the  immutable  laws  of  God. 

If,  then,  one  may  not  wish  to  rise  above  labor,  nor 
to  exchange  a  calling  in  which  he  excels  for  one  in 
which  he  must  fail,  nor  to  attain  wealth  or  station  by 
dishonorable  means,  what  is  meant  by  rising  in  the 
world  ?  What  is  included  in  the  just  ambition  of 
thrifty  working-people  ? 

1.  To  be  out  of  debt,  for  -one  thing.  It  is  some- 
times necessary  to  incur  debts ;  when  this  has  been 
done,  the  first  business  is  to  pay  them.  You  do  not 
rise  in  the  world  by  getting  finery  and  furniture 
wherewith  to  make  a  brave  show,  while  unpaid  bills 
are  hanging  like  millstones  around  your  neck.  Noth- 
ing holds  a  man  down  like  debt.  You  will  not  rise 
very  high  till  you  are  rid  of  it. 

2.  If  you  are  in  discomfort,  or  absolute  wretched- 
ness, your  endeavor  ought  to  be  to  rise  out  of  it  into 
A  condition  of  comfort.  It  is  hard  to  draw  the  line 
here,  for  one  would  be  satisfied  with  a  manner  of  life 
in  which  another  would  be  wretched.  "^Still  we  all 
know  that  some  measure  of  decency  and  seemliness  is 
possible  to  all  in  this  land.  It  is  not  necessary  for 
human  beings  to  live  like  dogs  in  a  kennel,  neither  is 
it  neo^ssary  for  them  to  live  like  princes  in  a  palace ; 
between  these  two  extremes  there  is  a  golden  mean 
of   respectability  within  which    we    may  all   abida 


Rising  i7i  the   World,  85 


Thougli  elegance  may  be  beyond  our  reach,  cleanli 
ness  is  not ;  and  that  is  a  grace  that  must  not  be 
lightly  esteemed.  If  our  attire  is  neat,  and  our 
apartments  are  orderly  and  tidy,  this  will  go  a  long 
way  toward  making  up  for  any  lack  of  stylishness  or 
costliness  in  our  raiment  and  our  furniture.  I  have 
found  the  kitchens  of  some  working-people  very 
pleasant  places  to  sit  and  talk  in.  All  of  us  may 
hope  to  rise  in  the  world  high  enough  to  get  out  of 
the  dirt. 

Beyond  this,  it  appears  to  me  that  working-people 
ought  always  to  try  to  lay  by  something ;  not  with 
the  thought  tliat  they  may  be  rich  enough  in  tlie 
future  to  live  in  idleness,  but  that  they  may  have  a 
provision  made  against  sickness  or  infirmity  or  old 
age.  For  one  thing,  they  should  keep  it  before 
them,  as  a  chief  purpose  of  life,  that  they  will  at 
some  time  have  homes  of  their  own.  A  little  spot  of 
this  earth's  surface  in  which  he  may  feel  the  honest 
pride  of  ownership,  a  roof  that  may  shelter  him  in 
his  declining  days,  —  these  are  not,  I  trust,  bey  ond 
the  attainment,  as  they  ought  not  to  be  beyond  the 
expectation,  of  the  thrifty  laboring-man.  Having 
procured  for  himself  a  home,  it  will  be  well  if  in 
some  safe  place  he  shall  lay  up  for  himself  a  good 
foundation  against  the  time  to  come  ;  so  that  if  disas- 


86         Working  People  a7id  their  Employers, 

ter  overtake  him,  and  his  supplies  are  cut  off,  he  may 
not  be  left  in  absolute  penury. 

But  some  of  you  will  tell  me  that  even  this  mod- 
erate measure  of  prosperity  is  not  easy  of  attainment. 
It  is  as  much  as  you  can  do,  you  say,  to  live  decently 
on  your  earnings :  the  prospect  of  accumulating  any 
thing  is  very  slight  indeed.  And  you  think  that  if 
you  are  ever  to  achieve  any  degree  of  independence, 
you  must  rise  fi'om  the  ranks  of  the  wage-laborers 
into  the  ranks  of  the  employers  of  labor.  But  it  is 
by  no  means  certain  that  you  would  improve  your 
condition  by  such  an  attempt.  Some  journeymen 
doubtless  have  the  qualities  that  would  fit  them  to 
succeed  as  employers.  They  have  organizing  ability : 
they  could  plan  work  judiciously,  could  make  close 
estimates  and  wise  investments,  could  judge  of  men 
and  materials  and  times  and  tendencies  and  work 
and  results,  and  therefore  could  do  well  as  masters 
and  contractors.  But  there  are  others,  and  these  are 
greatly  in  the  majority,  who,  though  skilful  work- 
men, are  lacking  in  this  power  to  organize  work. 
While  they  are  employed  as  workmen,  they  do 
admirably  :  when  they  attempt  to  take  the  direction 
of  work,  they  arc  sure  to  fail.  It  is  not  the  easiest 
thing  in  the  world,  even  if  one  has  some  capital  to 
begin  with,  to  carry  on  successfully  an  industrial  oi 
a  inej'cantile  business. 


Rising  in  the    World.  87 


I  shall  be  asked  if  this  admission  does  not  take 
the  ground  from  under  the  system  of  co-operation. 
If  it  be  true  that  only  a  few  workmen  have  the  ability 
to  manage  business,  would  not  a  business  that  was 
managed  by  a  body  of  workmen  be  badly  managed  ? 
The  same  query  applies  to  a  town  government. 
Only  a  few  of  all  the  voters  of  a  town  have  the 
executive  ability  necessary  to  manage  the  town 
affairs.  Yet  the  business  of  the  towns  of  this  Com- 
monwealth has,  as  a  rule,  been  very  well  conducted. 
The  voters  generally  have  sense  enough  to  select 
capable  men,  and  intrust  the  business  to  them.  I 
don't  know  why  co-operation  in  the  business  of  mak- 
ing shoes,  for  example,  should  be  deemed  quixotic, 
when  co-operation  in  the  business  of  government  — 
a  business  infinitely  more  complex  and  delicate  — 
luis  been  demonstrated  by  an  experience  of  two  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  in  Massachusetts  to  be  wholly 
practicable. 

Of  course  successful  co-operation,  whether  in  the 
state  or  the  shop,  requires  intelligence  in  the  co- 
operators  ;  sense  enough  to  know  when  they  are 
well  served,  to  choose  wise  representatives,  to  give 
them  some  discretion,  and  to  trust  them  in  the  exer- 
cise of  it.  The  fact  that  the  experiment  has  broken 
down  so  often  proves  just  this  and  nothing  more: 
that  the  working-men  who  have  tried  it  have  lacked 


88         Working  People  a7id  their  Employers. 

this  modicum  of  sense.  And  wliile  I  have  no  doubt 
that  there  will  be  many  more  such  failures,  before 
tliere  will  be  any  general  prevalence  of  the  system, 
yet  it  seems  only  natural  to  hope  for  a  degree  of 
intelligence  and  self-control  among  our  workmen 
that  shall  render  them  capable  of  combining  their 
savings  as  capital,  and  becoming  proprietors  as  well 
as  laborers. 

In  the  mean  time  let  those  who  have  the  will  to 
better  their  condition  try  what  virtue  there  is  in  in- 
dustry, and  thoroughness,  and  fidelity,  and  economy. 
Work  patiently ;  perfect  yourselves  as  workmen ; 
learn  to  do  your  work  in  the  very  best  manner. 
Stand  at  the  top  of  your  calling.  There  is  always 
room  higher  up.  You  can  become  so  skilful,  so 
competent,  so  trustworthy,  that  your  services  shall 
always  be  in  demand  at  the  highest  rate  of  wages. 
If  you  will  then  husband  your  resources,  deny  your- 
selves fooleries  and  fineries  that  you  would  be  better 
off  without,  and  take  good  care  of  your  savings,  you 
may  greatly  improve  your  condition,  even  thougli 
the  prospect  of  a  competence  may  not  be  very  clear. 

It  may  be  well  to  face  the  fact  that,  for  the  great 
majority  of  you,  there  is  nothing  better  than  this  in 
store.  Some  of  you,  doubtless,  are  hoping  for  some- 
thing that  seems  to  you  a  great  deal  better.  You 
are  in  perpetual  discomfort  and  discontent,  burdened 


Rising  in  the   World.  89 


perhaps  witli  debts  that  do  i  ot  diminisli,  or  living  at 
best  from  hand  to  inouth,  no  better  off  at  tlie  end  of 
the  year  than  you  were  at  llie  beginning;  and  you 
arc  hoping  to  rise  out  of  this  eondition  into  an  easier 
and  better  one,  but  how  or  wlien  you  d<j  not  exaetly 
Lnow.  Some  of  you  have  great  expectations,  that 
some  good  fortune  will  come  to  you ;  that  somebody 
will  die,  and  remember  you  in  his  will ;  that  you  will 
discover  a  gold-mine  or  an  oil-well  somewhere;  that 
you  will  run  across  some  streak  of  good  luck ;  that 
in  some  exceptional  and  fortuitous  way  you  will 
rise  in  the  world.  The  sooner  you  rid  yourselves  of 
this  delusion,  the  better.  The  chances  are  a  hundred 
thousand  to  one  that  nothing  of  the  sort  "A^ill  ever 
happen  to  you.  If  you  and  I  are  ever  to  be  better 
off  than  we  are,  if  prosperity  is  ever  to  come  to  us, 
it  will  not  come  by  luck,  but  by  industry  and  econo 
my.  Standing  right  where  we  are,  taking  the  means 
within  our  reach,  we  are  to  achieve  all  the  prosperity 
that  will  ever  be  ours. 

To  some  of  you,  it  may  seem  that  the  prospect  1 
hjive  held  up  before  you  is  not  a  very  brilliant  one. 
To  be  able  by  hard  work  and  close  economy  to  get 
out  of  debt  and  want,  to  make  yourself  possessor  of 
a  comfortable  home,  and  to  have  a  little  hoard  In  id 
by  in  the  savings  bank,  and  yet  to  toil  on  from  year 
ti  year  at  the  same  vocation:   if  this  is  rising  in   the 


90         Wo7'-king  People  and  tJieir  Employers. 

world,  you  say,  it  is  not  rising  very  high,  assuredly. 
Possibly  your  Dwn  ambition  has  taken  much  loftier 
flights.  Possibly  you  thought  that  I  would  hold  up 
before  you  the  examples  of  the  men  of  our  time,  or 
of  former  times,  who  have  risen  out  of  poverty  into 
great  wealth  or  high  station,  and  would  pique  your 
ambition  by  the  story  of  their  rapid  advancement, 
reminding  you  that  the  paths  they  trod  to  these 
eminences  invite  your  feet.  But  I  must  own  to  you 
that  the  heights  to  which  I  long  to  see  you  rise  are 
not  these  at  all.  God  knows  I  wish  you  well,  every 
one  of  you ;  and  if  by  wishing  it  I  could  secure  your 
highest  welfare,  none  of  you  would  wait  for  it  long. 
But  looking  at  the  world  from  my  point  of  view,  I 
am  not  sure  that,  if  I  had  the  lamp  of  Aladdin,  I 
would  put  you  in  the  place  of  Stewart  or  of  Yander- 
bilt.  There  are  advantages  for  the  attainment  of  the 
highest  end  of  life  to  men  who  stand  where  they  do ; 
but  the  drawbacks  more  than  balance  the  advantages. 
It  is  an  awful  trial  to  which  any  man's  soul  is  ex- 
posed, when  he  is  given  vast  wealth,  —  wealth  that 
enables  him  to  gild  or  to  conceal  vice  ;  wealth  that 
absorbs  his  affections,  and  dulls,  if  it  does  not 
destroy,  his  sense  of  responsibility.  And  while  all 
our  millionaires  show  that  they  have  power  of  a 
certain  kind,  —  shrewdness,  organizing  ability,  force 
of  will  — I  fenr  we  must  say  of  the  most  of  them  tha* 


Rising  in  the   World,  91 

outside  of  the  world  of  finance  and  exchanges  they 
are  very  small  indeed.  They  know  one  thing 
thoroughly,  —  that  is,  how  to  accumulate  property ; 
and  they  know  very  little  else.  When  thought  turns 
toward  them,  on  what  does  it  fasten  ?  Is  it  not  the 
merchandise  or  the  gold  that  they  have  heaped  up  ? 
Is  there  any  thing  in  the  personality  of  such  men 
that  fascinates  us?  Do  they  not  rather  chill  and 
repel  our  affection?  When  we  measure  them  by 
ethical  or  by  spiritual  standards,  the  only  ones  we 
shall  think  of  applying  to  ourselves  when  we  come 
to  sum  up  life  and  see  what  it  has  amounted  to,  we 
find  their  stature  is  not  great. 

I  look  over  the  towns  where  my  homes  have  been, 
and  see  here  and  there  a  plain  working-man  who  goes 
to  his  work  in  the  winter  mornings  before  the  sun  is 
up,  and  sups  with  his  family  by  candlelight  after  his 
day's  work  is  done ;  who  has  a  snug  little  home  of 
his  own,  and  a  small  hoard  in  a  safe  place ;  who 
has  a  wife  to  whom  in  heart  and  life  he  has  always 
been  loyal,  and  a  little  brood  of  children  that  he 
loves  and  watches  tenderly ;  a  man  who,  though  not 
college-bred,  has  large  information  gained  through 
reading,  and  ready  wit  and  quick  perceptions  and 
wide  sympathies,  and  who  lives  a  pure  and  happy 
life  every  day  before  God  and  man ;  and  I  say  to 
myself,  "  I  wonder,  now,  if  that  fellow  would  change 


92         PVorh'no-  People  and  their  Employers. 

places  and  souls  with  such  a  man  as  —  well,  never 
mind  his  name;  would  take  the  old  millionaire's 
millions,  and  along  with  them  his  shrivelled  con- 
science, and  his  sordid  desires,  and  his  narrow  views 
of  life  and  destiny,  and  his  haunting  memories  of 
treachery  and  foul  play.  I  wonder  if  this  honest 
sound-hearted  working-man  would,  if  he  could,  make 
such  an  exchange  as  this.  If  he  could  and  should, 
he  would  prove  himself  to  be  a  miserable  fool.  0, 
who  is  so  blind  as  not  to  see  that  the  portion  of  such 
a  working-man  is  infinitely  more  to  be  coveted  than 
that  of  such  a  millionaire  ? 

Prosperity,  my  friends,  prosperity  in  a  very  mod- 
erate measure,  but  not  affluence,  I  covet  for  myself 
and  for  you.  There  is  a  better  life  than  that  to  which 
abundance  is  wont  to  lead;  and  to  that  every  one 
of  you  may  attain.  To  stand  in  your  lot  with  stead 
fastness ;  to  take  the  good  of  life  with  thankfulness, 
and  its  evil  with  patience ;  to  do  your  daily  work 
cheerfully  and  well ;  to  cherish  those  whom  God  has 
given  you  with  a  pure  affection  ;  to  receive  with 
open  and  vigilant  mind  all  the  truth  that  is  brought 
}  on  ;  to  love  and  help  your  neighbors  as  you  have 
opportunity  ;  and  to  hold  communion  every  day  with 
Ilim  whose  grace  will  make  you  strong  to  endure 
and  overcome,  —  is  there  any  higher  life  than  this 
possible  to  any  of  us? 


Rising  i7i  the    World.  93 

Good  friends,  I  wish  I  could  make  you  all  believe 
tluit  a  iiuia's  life  docs  not  consist  in  the  a)j  ludance  of 
the  things  he  possesses.  I  wish  I  could  make  you 
all  sec  that  it  is  possible  for  you,  standing  riglit 
where  you  are,  to  realize  the  very  highest  ideal  of 
true  living.  '  I  wish  you  all  knew  that  ])y  your 
fidelity,  your  contentment,  your  manliness,  your 
steadfast  choice  of  spiritual  rather  than  temporal 
good,  you  might  clothe  this  work-day  life  of  yours 
with  a  glory  such  as  seldom  shines  in  courts  and 
palaces.  The  multitudes  about  you  are  racing  after 
pelf  and  place,  —  scheming  and  striving  and  rioting. 
God  help  you  to  see  that  there  are  higher  ends  than 
these  they  aim  at !  God  save  you  from  the  leanness 
of  soul  that  is  their  sure  portion,  and  show  you  that 
you  need  not  wish  for  any  better  sphere  in  which  to 
achieve  true  greatness  than  that  in  which  he  has 
placed  you ! 


THE  HOUSEHOLD  AND  THE  HOME. 

The  family  is  the  oldest  of  the  institutions  of 
society,  and  the  most  sacred ;  it  is  before  and  above 
the  Church  and  the  State.  If  there  is  any  thing 
absolutely  fundamental  and  essential  in  social  order, 
it  is  the  family. 

Yet  any  one  who  carefully  watches  the  drift  of 
public  movements  must  be  aware  of  a  wide-spread 
conspiracy  against  this  venerable  and  divine  institu- 
tion. The  workings  of  this  conspiracy  appear  partly 
in  certain  startling  social  experiments  now  being 
tried  in  various  parts  of  our  land,  and  partly  in  cer- 
tain tendencies  that  show  themselves  everywhere  in 
society,  moving  sometimes  upon  and  sometimes 
beneath  the  surface. 

The  extreme  measure  of  relif^ious  liberty  enjoyed 
94 


The  Household  and  the  Home. 


in  America  has  resulted  in  a  variety  of  social  mon- 
strosities. Shakerism,  Oneida  Communism,  Mormon- 
ism,  are  ostensibly  and  fundamentally  religions,  and 
are  tolerated  here  only  as  religions.  There  is  need 
that  this  whole  subject  of  the  toleration  of  religious 
systems  should  be  re-examined.  When  such  a  social 
abomination  as  the  Oneida  or  the  Wallingford  Com- 
munity springs  up  in  the  midst  of  civilized  society, 
and  claims  to  be  protected  on  the  ground  that  it  is  a 
form  of  religion,  it  is  high  time  that  we  were  con- 
sidering just  how  much  immorality  and  corruption 
can  be  covered  by  a  creed.  Otherwise  we  may  by 
and  by  witness  the  rising-up  of  sects  divinely  com- 
missioned to  commit  arson  and  murder  and  highway 
robbery. 

It  is  the  peculiarity  of  the  societies  referred  to, 
that  they  repudiate  the  family  relation,  and  substitute 
for  it  a  phalanx  or  a  community  or  a  harem.  This  is 
the  error  on  which  they  are  built,  the  crime  against 
society  that  they  are  organized  to  perpetrate.  No 
substitute  for  the  family  has  been  or  can  be  provided 
without  turning  earth  into  hell ;  and  whoever 
attempts  to  put  such  theories  into  organic  form 
ought  to  be  restrained  by  law  as  an  evil-doer. 

Concerning  the  Shakers,  this  judgment  ought 
perhaps  to  be  tempered  somewhat.  All  that  needs 
to  be  said  about  them  is,  that  their  social  theories  are 


96         Working  Peiple  and  their  Employers. 


unnatural  and  absurd ;  that  if  they  live  up  to  thein 
they  will  get  but  few  followers,  and  do  but  little 
harm ;  and  that,  until  it  becomes  plain  that  they  are 
making  their  theories  the  cover  of  debaucheries,  the 
State  had  better  let  them  alone. 

But  it  is  not  only  among  the  Communists  and  the 
Mormons  that  the  enemies  of  the  family  are  found. 
The  agitation  now  in  progress  in  behalf  of  suffrage 
for  woman  is  carried  on  in  part  by  persons  who  have 
no  respect  for  the  family.  Of  those  who  are  active 
in  this  movement,  very  many  are  wholly  innocent  of 
any  design  upon  the  stability  of  the  household;  they 
think,  and  so  do  I,  that  the  enfranchisement  of 
women  may  be  consistent  with  the  maintenance  of 
the  family.  But  there  are  some  that  make  no  secret 
of  their  contempt  for  the  present  order  of  things; 
they  speak  of  marriage  and  maternity  as  if  they 
thought  them  bondage  and  degradation,  and  openly 
counsel  young  women  never  to  marry. 

The  conspiracy  against  the  family  counts  still  other 
conspirators,  of  a  very  different  class.  The  whole 
tendency  of  social  life  in  some  circles  is  such  as  to 
discourage  wedlock.  The  extravagant  and  luxurious 
habits  of  life  that  have  become  so  prevalent  lead 
many  to  shrink  from  assuming  the  expense  of  a 
family.  Knowing  that  it  would  not  be  possible  for 
them,  with  the  incomes  at  their  disposal,  to  maiutnin 


The  Household  and  /he  Home.  97 


a  corUiiii  elaborate  style  of  life,  wliieli  to  them  seems 
the  very  minimum  of  respectability,  many  young 
persons  deliberately  resolve  on  single  life  The 
young  man  makes  up  his  mind  that  a  wife  is  a  luxuiy 
too  expensive  for  him  to  afford;  and  the  young 
woman  resolves  that  she  will  not  marry  unless  there 
is  money  enough  in  the  proffered  hand  to  support 
her  in  good  style.  Thus  the  young  woman  grows 
mercenary  and  frivolous,  and  the  young  man  disso- 
lute and  rakish.  Every  year  that  passes  makes  it 
less  probable  that  they  will  ever  enter  into  the  family 
relations,  and  still  less  probable  that,  if  they  do,  this 
relation  will  be  a  happy  one. 

This  state  of  things,  which  we  witness  everywhere 
in  the  middle  classes,  is  greatly  to  be  deplored.  It 
is  the  source  of  a  large  part  of  the  vice  and  wretch- 
edness with  which  these  classes  are  infested.  Multi- 
tudes of  people  have  high  notions  and  limited  means; 
and  they  are  always  indefinitely  postponing  the 
beginning  of  the  family  life,  simply  because  they  arc 
such  arrant  cowards  that  they  dare  not  live  in  smallei 
and  less  richly  furnished  apartments,  dare  not  wear 
plainer  clothes,  than  some  of  their  neighbors  I  do 
not  think  that  working-people  are  so  apt  as  people 
of  other  classes  to  be  governed  by  these  mercenary 
considerations.  They  are  generally  content  to  begin 
life  as  they  can  afford  to  begin  ;  humbly   and  in  the 


98         Working  People  and  their  Employers. 


fliitV  that  they  can  improve  their  circumstances  as 
time  goes  on.  I  hope  this  will  always  remain  true 
of  them.  -  There  are  doubtless  exceptions,  as  in  the 
case  of  perso  is  of  infirm  health,  in  which  such 
responsibilities  should  not  be  assumed ;  but  marriage, 
and  early  marriage,  ought  to  be  the  expectation  and 
the  purpose.  There  ought  to  be  manhood  and 
womanhood  enough  in  the  married  pair  to  enable 
them  to  begin  their  family  life  in  a  very  humble  way, 
to  live  within  their  means,  if  their  means  are  very 
limited.  The  practice  of  putting  off  the  day  till  the 
life  can  begin  in  elegance  and  splendor,  is  a  most 
heartless  and  abominable  practice. 

"  It  is  not  good  for  man  that  he  should  be  alone," 
was  the  word  of  the  Creator  in  Eden.  It  may  be 
the  duty  of  some  and  the  misfortune  of  others  to 
live  singly  ;  but  that  is  not  the  divine  rule  for  man- 
kind, "/j^  is  not  good  for  man  that  he  should  be 
alone."  Outside  of  the  family,  he  is  exposed  to  a 
thousand  temptations  from  which  the  family  would 
shield  him. 

I  know  that  the  safeguards  of  the  home,  the 
motives  furnished  by  the  household,  are  not  sufficient 
to  restrain  some  men  from  iniquity.  But,  with  the 
great  majority  of  decent  people,  domestic  life  is  a 
powerful  check  upon  the  baser  passions.  There  are 
husbands  and  fathers  among  my  readers  living  sober 


The  Household  and  /he    Home.  99 


and  reputable  lives  to-day,  who  would,  if  it  wci'e  not 
for  their  families,  be  walking  in  the  path  of  indul- 
gence. The  thought  of  the  wife  and  the  children  at 
home,  the  unwillingness  to  bring  shame  or  dishonor 
upon  their  families,  is  always  present  in  their  minds 
to  lead  them  in  the  ways  of  vktue.  And  since  this 
motive  does  operate  so  powerfully  upon  every  man 
of  honor,  it  is  wise  for  every  man  who  desires  to  pre- 
serve his  purity  of  heart  and  of  life  to  put  himself 
under  its  influence. 

But  not  only  is  it  not  good  for  man  that  he  should 
be  alone :  it  is  good  for  him  that  he  should  dwell  in 
the  family  relation.  The  family  serves  not  only  as  a 
restraint:  it  serves  also  as  a  stimulus;  it  furnishes  a 
powerful  reinforcement  to  all  that  is  good  in  human 
nature.  Certain  of  the  virtues,  and  they  are  the 
most  beautiful  of  all  the  virtues,  can  hardly  be 
acquired  except  in  the  family.  The  education  that 
comes  to  both  men  and  women  in  the  school  of  the 
ftimily^is  perhaps  the  most  valuable  education  they 
ever  receive.  The  husband  and  wife  who  are  united 
by  a  true  affection  are  brought  into  a  relation  that 
has  no  type  or  parallel  in  this  world.  The  higher 
spiritual  nature  is  enriched  by  wedlock  witli  gifts 
that  can  be  obtained  in  no  other  way.  The  perfect 
sympathy,  the  true  accord,  the  entire  identification 
of  interests  and  hopes,  that  characterizes  the  happy 


lOO       Working  People  and  their  hhiployers, 

married  life,  is  the  source  of  infinite  blessing  to  both 
husband  and  wife.  By  their  affection  for  each  other 
they  become  assimilated  in  character  and  nature. 
Sometimes  this  likeness  of  spirit  reveals  itself  even 
in  the  countenance,  and  as  they  grow  older  there 
comes  to  be  in  many  cases  a  striking  resemblance 
between  them.  But  when  this  does  not  take  place, 
there  is  often  a  wonderful  interfusion  of  mental  traits 
and  characteristics.  The  husband  learns,  after  a  time, 
to  see  not  only  with  his  own  eyes,  but  with  those  of 
his  wife  ;  and  the  wife  knows  by  a  perfect  intuition, 
what  impression  every  circumstance  or  sentiment  will 
make  upon  the  mind  of  her  husband.  Now,  this  per- 
fect blending  of  the  two  lives  gives  to  each  greater 
value,  greater  breadth,  greater  beauty.  The  manly 
character,  in  its  noblest  manifestation,  is  one-sided 
and  incomplete ;  so  is  the  womanly :  a  full  and  sym- 
metrical development  is  not  possible  to  cither  except 
as  the  two  are  brought  together  in  a  genuine  and 
life -long  union. 

But  the  benefits  of  domestic  life  come  not  only 
from  wedlock,  but  from  parentage.  No  philosophy 
can  measure,  no  language  can  tell,  the  good  thai 
children  bring  to  their  parents.  When  the  pure 
fountains  of  parental  love  are  opened  in  the  heart,  a 
new  life  is  begun.  New  feelings,  sober  and  tender 
and  full  of  purifying  grace,  spiing  up  in   the  soul ; 


The  Ilcuschold  and  iJic  Home,  loi 

new  visions  are  opened,  new  motives  are  supplied. 
He  must  be  a  cold-blooded  miscreant  indeed,  who 
can  receive  from  the  great  Father  the  gift  of  a  little 
child,  helpless,  innocent,  yet  immortal,  and  not  feel 
his  heart  stirred  to  its  profoundest  depths  with  joy 
and  hope  and  solemn  thankfulness.  He  must  be 
hardened  and  imbruted  beyond  all  hope  of  reforma- 
tion, who  can  watch  the  growth  of  a  little  child,  — 
the  unfolding  of  its  beauty,  the  dawnings  of  its  intel- 
ligence, the  venturings  of  its  artless  thought  into  the 
dark  regions  of  human  speculation,  the  pluming  of 
the  soul's  pinions  for  heavenly  flights,  —  with  no  new 
aspirations  for  a  better  life. 

Such  are  some  of  the  blessings  that  come  to  us 
through  the  family.  The  wholesome  restraints  it 
throws  around  us,  the  new  and  holy  experiences  to 
which  it  introduces  us,  the  enlargement  that  it  brings 
to  the  best  part  of  our  nature,  all  help  to  demonstrate 
that  it  is  what  Christians  claim,  —  an  institution  of 
divine  appointment.  It  may  be  to  some  the  savor  of 
death  unto  death  ;  but  so  is  the  gospel  of  grace : 
rightly  used,  it  can  only  be  the  savor  of  life  unto 
life. 

It  may  be,  however,  that  these  fundamental  truths 
concerning  family  life  are  all  accepted  by  ycai.  If 
so,  suffer  a  few  words  Concerning  the  forming  of  the 
family,  —  the  building  of  the  home. 


I02       Working  People  and  thtir  Employers. 


Some  of  you  are  looking  forward  to  the  time  when 
you  shall  have  families  and  homes  of  your  own.  It 
is  by  marriage  that  the  household  is  constituted ;  and, 
as  tlje  initial  organic  rite,  its  sacredness  can  hardly 
be  exaggerated.  Your  material  prosperity  and  yo  ir 
moral  and  spiritual  welfare  depend  upon  your  mar- 
riage more  than  upon  any  other  event  of  your  life. 
I  hope,  young  people,  that  you  always  treat  this  great 
subject  seriously ;  that  you  have  resolved  to  govern 
all  your  conduct  in  relation  to  it,  not  by  romantic 
notions,  nor  by  mercenary  purposes,  nor  by  passion- 
ate impulses,  but  by  the  higher  reason  and  the  purer 
affections.  Foolish  choices  have  always  been  made, 
and  doubtless  always  will  be.  It  is  not  likely  that  I 
could  give  you  any  rules  that  would  enable  you  to 
make  an  infallible  selection  ;  and  it  is  still  less  likely 
that  you  would  follow  any  rules  that  I  could  give 
you,  if  they  were  ever  so  good.  It  is  a  business  that 
is  rarely  done  by  rule  ;  nevertheless  it  is  a  business 
that  should  not  be  done  recklessly.  As  a  safe  guide 
hi  the  premises,  let  me  suggest  one  simple  maxim. 
Friendship  as  well  as  love,  friendship  even  more  than 
love,  is  the  indispensable  condition  of  true  marriage. 
Friendship  is  the  harmony  of  the  higher  elements  of 
the  nature,  —  of  sentiments,  tastes,  pursuits ;  while 
by  love  is  commonly  meant '  only  the  attraction  of 
passion.     Rememl)er,  then,  young  man,  tliat  you  want 


The  Household  and  the  Ho.ne.  ^03 


in  f.  wife  a  friend ;  remember  that  she  is  to  be  your 
nearest  and  most  intimate  friend;  and  ask  youi^elf 
whether  it  is  likely  that  the  one  of  whom  you  are 
thinkincr  will  answer  all  the  conditions  of  a  near  and 
perpetual  friendship.  In  short,  supposing  this  per- 
son were  of  your  own  sex,  would  the  expectation  0/ 
a  close  and  life-long  intimacy  between  you  be  full 
of  joy  and  promise?  If  you  can  soberly  answer 
this  question  in  the  affirmative,  you  need  ask  no 
further  questions;  if  you  cannot,  you  had  better 
pause. 

When  the  important  choice  has  been  made,  and 
consummated  by  marriage,  then  the  fxmily  life 
begins.  If  the  choice  be  a  wise  and  happy  one,  the 
future  is  secure.  But  what  if  there  was  an  error 
here  ?  What  if  two  are  brought  together  in  this 
relation  who  are  imperfectly  fitted,  or  wholly  unfit- 
ted, l3y  nature  and  by  education,  for  each  other  ^ 
Such  mistakes  are  made  in  all  circles  of  society. 
What  shall  be  done  in  such  a  case?  There  is  one 
thing,  and  only  one,  that  can  be  done,  and  that  is  tc 
make  the  best  of  it.  If  the  parties  both  discover 
after  marriage  that  there  is  more  discord  than 
harmony  in  their  union,  that  is  certainly  a  great 
misfortune ;  but  retreat  is  not  possible.  Tolerance, 
forbearance,  are  needed  then.  To  dwell  upon  the 
hard  fact,  coiLst^ntly  to  deplore  it,  is  to  fill   life  with 


/04       Working  People  and  theiy  Eiitployers, 

wretchedness.  The  wise  course  is  for  each  one 
heartily  and  hopefully  to  resolve  that  these  discords 
shall  be  harmonized.  When  two  pianos  are  brought 
together  for  the  playing  of  a  duet,  one  is  almost 
always  tuned  a  little  higher  than  the  other.  If  they 
were  played  together,  the  discord  would  be  horrible; 
but  the  tuner,  with  a  quick  ear  and  a  skilful  hand, 
can  soon  bring  them  into  harmony.  When  two  lives 
are  joined  together  in  wedlock,  it  is  very  seldom  that 
they  are  in  perfect  accord  at  the  beginning ;  more  or 
less  tuning  of  both  is  commonly  needed  to  make  the 
harmony  perfect.  Sometimes  it  is  a  long  and  diffi- 
cult task ;  but  it  is  never  impossible  if  only  there  be 
a  steady  purpose  on  both  sides  to  accomplish  it. 
This,  then,  is  what  must  be  done.  Each  must  study 
the  tastes  and  peculiarities  of  the  other,  must  be 
patient  with  the  inhrmities  of  the  other,  must  seek 
to  increase  the  other's  happiness  in  every  possible 
way ;  and,  above  all,  each  must  resolve  to  become 
better  and  more  amiable  every  day ;  for  the  better 
iLese  two  persons  are,  tlie  more  certain  they  will  be 
lo  agree. 

Such  an  endeavor  as  this,  quietly  and  cheerfull}' 
persisted  in  on  l:)oth  sides,  will  quickly  substitute 
harmony  for  discord.  There  is  abundant  happiness 
in  store  for  every  unhappy  couple  that  will  heartily 
make   this  endeavor.      Brooding  over   the   mistakes 


The  Household  and  the   Home.  105 

of  the  past  is  poor  business.  The  poet  Xills  us 
that  — 

"  Of  all  sad  words  of  tongue  or  pen, 
The  saddest  are  these,  '  It  might  have  been! '  " 

Ihey  are  often  the  silliest,  too,  as  well  as  the 
saddest.  If  the  time  tliat  is  spent  in  lamenting  past 
mistakes  were  turned  to  the  improvement  of  present 
opportunities,  many  marred  lives  might  be  made 
beautiful. 

There  is  a  movement  now  in  certain  quarters  (or 
was^  for  I  think  it  has  partly  lost  its  head)  to  relax 
the  stringency  of  the  marriage  bond,  and  to  allow 
separation  for  slight  causes,  —  for  mere  incompati- 
bility of  temper  and  taste.  This  would  be  a  terrible 
mistake.  The  probable  results  of  such  a  course, 
obvious  enough  to  any  sort  of  vision,  should  make 
us  pause.  Who  could  doubt  that  it  would  lead  to 
^rreater  recklessness  in  the  formini^r  of  this  relation  ? 
What  might  be  so  easily  ended  would  oftener  than 
now  1)0  lightly  begun.  ^loreover,  it  would  encour- 
age and  magnify  disagreements.  Many  slight  infeli- 
cities that  now  are  patiently  borne  would,  under  such 
a  state  of  things,  be  magnified  into  great  grievances; 
and  there  would  soon  l)e  little  permanency  in  the 
family  life.  No,  my  friends;  it  is  not  by  removing 
obstacles    to    separation,    that    we    are    to     improve 


io6      Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

domestic  life.  Easy  divorce  is  not  the  way  to 
"  home,  sweet  home  :  "  it  leads  in  exactly  the  oppo- 
site direction;  it  is  the  stiaight  road  to  pande- 
monium. 

The  household  having  been  formed,  and  fortified 
against  the  assaults  of  bad  philosophy  and  fickle 
passion,  the  question  of  its  rule  next  arises.  What 
form  of  government  shall  prevail  ?  Is  the  family  a 
monarchy  —  or  man  -  archy  ?  Is  the  husband  and 
father  the  lord  and  master,  and  are  the  wife  and 
children  his  subjects  and  servants  ?  You  know  how 
it  is  yourselves ;  what  I  want  to  know  is,  how  it 
ought  to  be.  The  question  is,  of  course,  respecting 
the  condition  of  the  wife  in  the  household.  Ought 
she  to  be  in  a  subject  condition  ? 

If  we  appeal  to  history,  we  shall  find  an  easy 
answer.  In  the  primitive  barbarism,  the  woman  is 
ranked  with  the  lower  animals,  or  but  little  above 
them.  She  is  the  property  of  the  man.  The  fathor 
sells  his  daughters  just  as  he  does  his  domestic 
animals;  and  the  husband  buys  his  wife  or  wives  as 
he  buys  his  oxen  or  sheep.  The  Zulu  fathers  count 
each  marriageable  daughter  as  so  many  cattle.  There 
]£  a  regular  price-current  for  wives,  which  rises  and 
falls  with  the  cattle-market.  When  cattle  are  scarce, 
wives  are  cheap ;  when  cattle  are  plenty,  wives  are 
dear.     That  is  what  a  Zulu  husband  means  when  he 


file  Ho7isehold  and  ine  Home,  io7 


speaks  of  his  dear  wife.  Among  these  and  other 
barbarians,  women  have  no  social  or  civil  rights  at 
all.  A  man  may  not  kill  a  female  belonging  to  the 
family  of  his  neighbor,  because  she  is  his  neighbor's 
property ;  but  he  may  kill  his  own  wife  or  daughter, 
if  he  choose :  has  he  not  a  right  to  do  what  he  will 
with  his  own  ? 

Coming  out  of  barbarism  into  the  conditions  of 
civilization,  we  find  the  condition  of  the  woman  but 
little  altered  for  the  better.  "  Until  a  later  period  in 
European  history,"  says  Mr.  Mill,  "  the  father  had 
the  right  to  dispose  of  his  daughter  in  marriage  at 
his  own  will  and  pleasure,  without  any  regard  to 
hers.  The  church,  indeed,  was  so  far  faithful  to  a 
better  morality  as  to  require  a  formal  '  yes  '  from  the 
woman  at  the  marriage  ceremony;  but  there  was 
nothing  to  show  that  the  consent  was  other  than 
compulsory.  .  .  .  After  marriage,  the  man  had  an- 
ciently (but  this  was  anterior  to  Christianity)  the 
power  of  life  and  death  over  his  wife.  She  could 
invoke  no  law  against  him :  he  was  her  sole  tribunal 
and  law.  For  a  long  time  he  could  repudiate  her, 
but  she  had  no  corresponding  power  in  regard  to 
him.  By  the  old  laws  of  England,  the  husband  was 
called  the  lord  of  the  ^vife.  He  was  literally 
regarded  as  her  sovereign,  insomuch  tliat  the  murder 
ol'  a  man  by  his  wife  was  called  "^^'eason  (^peiUj,  as 


io8      Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

distinguished  from  liigh  treason),  and  was  more 
cruelly  avenged  than  was  usually  the  case  with  high 
treason ;  for  the  penalty  was  burning  to  death." 

Such  are  some  of  the  answers  that  history  gives, 
when  we  inquire  what  has  been  the  relation  of 
woman  to  the  family.  With  the  advent  of  Christian- 
ity came  a  great  mitigation  in  the  hardships  of  her 
condition.  The  power  of  life  and  death  was  with- 
drawn from  the  husband,  his  right  to  discard  and 
abandon  his  wife  at  pleasure  was  denied,'  and  he  was 
greatly  restrained  in  the  infliction  upon  her  of 
physical  injury.  Yet  it  is  not  long  since  it  was 
considered  every  husband's  inalienable  right  to  flog 
his  wife,  if  she  showed  herself  insubordinate.  If, 
therefore,  the  thing  that  has  been  is  the  thing  that 
shall  be,  we  must  certainly  admit  that  the  position 
of  the  wife  in  the  household  is  that  of  subjection. 

Turning  to  the  Bible,  and  repeating  our  inquiry, 
we  find  what  seems  to  be  a  confirmation  of  the  ver- 
dict of  history.  Of  course  the  Scripture  gives  no 
countenance  to  the  barbaric  notion  that  the  wife  is 
the  property  of  her  husband,  that  he  may  wreak  his 
passion  upon  her,  or  repudiate  her  at  his  pleasure ; 
but  the  doctrine  seems  to  be  tauglit,  that  woman  is 
in  a  subordinate  if  not  in  a  subject  condition;  that 
the  authority  and  power  belong  to  the  husband. 

The  record  of  the  creation  gives  no  hint  of  any 


The  I louscJwld  and  Ike  Home.  log 

Buperiority  of  one  above  the  other,  save  as  tlie  man 
was  created  first.  But  this  proves  nothing  at  all,  <jr 
else  too  much  for  advocates  of  masculine  supremacy, 
since  the  other  animals  were  created  before  man ; 
and  if  priority  of  creation  be  the  ground  of  emi- 
nence, they  are  higher  in  the  scale  than  he.  The 
curse  that  followed  the  fall  seems  to  have  rested  upon 
woman  more  heavily  than  upon  man  ;  and  it  is  men- 
tioned as  one  of  the  evil  incidents  of  her  fallen  state, 
that  her  desire  shall  be  unto  the  man,  and  he  shall  rule 
over  her.  But  it  would  seem  that  the  condition  into 
which  the  fall  brought  human  beings  is  precisely  the 
condition  in  which  they  ought  not  to  remain.  This 
sentence  in  the  curse  is  the  prophecy  of  a  fact,  not 
the  announcement  of  a  law.  The  prophecy  has  been 
fulfilled,  but  the  fact  is  not  therefore  justified.  It  is 
of  course  the  huv,  that  when  man  is  alienated  from 
God,  physical  force  instead  of  moral  influence  be- 
comes the  arbiter  of  his  affairs.  Woman  is  physi- 
cally weaker  than  man,  and  therefore  must  be,  while 
the  race  is  in  this  condition,  subject  to  him. 

So  far,  then,  as  Genesis  is  concerned,  I  do  not 
know  that  there  is  any  indication  that  the  normal 
condition  of  woman  in  the  household  is  subject  or 
even  subordinate.  The  fact  is  foretold,  that  •  this 
should  be  her  condition ;  the  fulfilment  of  this  pre- 
diction we  have  found  in  history.     But  it  is  also  dis 


1 1  o       Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

tiiictly  declared  that  the  subjection  is  part  of  the 
misery  of  the  fall,  and  this  it  is  the  aini  of  Christianity 
to  remove. 

I  do  not  remember  that  this  question  of  the  le- 
lalion  of  the  sexes  is  definitely  touched  again  until 
we  come  to  the  epistles.  There  is  no  word  of  Christ 
himself  that  favors  the  subjection  of  woman  ;  but  in 
the  epistles  of  Paul  and  Peter  there  are  certain  advices 
that  seem  to  bear  this  inter23retation.  The  position 
of  woman,  both  in  the  church  and  in  the  family, 
seems  by  their  teachings  to  be  that  of  subordination. 

For  instance,  Paul  says  that  woman  must  keep 
silence  in  the  churches,  that  it  is  a  shame  for  them 
to  speak  in  the  church.  Many  persons  regard  this  as 
a  rule  to  be  universally  observed ;  but  a  little  study 
of  the  subject  makes  it  probable  that  it  refers  to  cir- 
cumstances then  existing  at  the  East.  The  c^7stoms 
of  society  were  such,  that  for  a  woman  to  tak^  public 
part  in  any  religious  service  would  have  been  abso- 
lutely shocking.  No  Christian  woman  could  have 
done  such  a  thing  without  injuring  her  good  name, 
and  Paul's  counsel  is  grounded  on  this  fact  He 
does  not  want  them  to  bring  scandal  upon  them- 
selves and  the  gospel  they  profess,  by  disregarding 
social  customs  and  proprieties  in  this  way. 

For  the  same  reason,  Paul  forbids  women  to  appe  u 
in  public  assemblies  without  being  closely  veiled.      It 


The  Ilousc'/iold  ami  the  llonic. 


1 1  I 


was  tlicn,  and  still  is  in  the  East,  considered  im- 
modest for  a  woman  to  let  her  face  be  seen  in  pub- 
lic; and  Paul  exhorted  Christian  women  to  conform 
to  that  custom.  If  one  command  is  binding  on 
the  women  of  to-day,  the  other  is.  If  it  is  a  shame 
for  American  women  to  speak  in  church,  because 
Paul  says  so,  it  is  equally  a  shame  to  permit  their 
faces  to  be  seen  in  church,  or  in  the  street,  because 
Paul  says  so.  If  the  one  command  has  reference  to 
the  peculiar  customs  of  society  in  the  East,  so  does 
the  other. 

Now,  it  is,  to  say  the  least,  quite  possible  that 
those  passages  in  these  epistles  in  which  woman's 
position  in  the  family  is  represented  as  subordinate 
may  be  interpreted  in  the  same  way.  When  Paul 
and  Peter  tell  wives  to  be  subject  to  their  husbands, 
their  advice  may  be  founded  upon  the  peculiarities 
of  Oriental  society  rather  than  upon  any  unalterable 
law  of  the  divine  administration.  Things  being  as 
they  were,  it  might  have  been  better  that  women 
should  patiently  endure  the  limitations  of  their  lot 
than  that  they  should  attempt  any  sudden  and  violent 
revolution  in  society.  The  expectation  may  be,  with 
n^gard  to  the  condition  of  women  in  the  faiiiily,  as 
with  regard  to  the  condition  of  slaves  in  the  state, 
that  Christianity  will  gradually  loosen  their  1)onds, 
and  make  their  social  subjection  impossible.      Indeed, 


1 1 2       Working  People  afid  their  Employers, 

the  time  is  prophesied  when  there  shall  be  neither 
Jew  nor  Greek,  neither  bond  nor  free,  neither  male 
nor  female^  but  all  shall  be  one  in  Christ.  Of 
course,  this  can  only  mean  the  abolition  of  the  social 
disparity  between  the  sexes.  In  patient  waiting  for 
the  coming  of  that  time,  wives  as  well  as  slaves  may 
be  admonished  to  abide  in  that  calling  wherein  they 
are  called. 

Such  would  seem  to  be  the  Scriptural  teaching 
upon  this  subject.  The  whole  tendency  of  Christian- 
ity is  to  relieve  woman  of  the  curse  and  misery  of 
our  fallen  state.  And  if  this  supremacy  of  man  and 
this  subjection  of  woman  are,  as  they  are  said  to  be 
in  Genesis,  part  of  the  curse,  then  we  ought  to 
expect  that  they  will  gradually  disappear;  and  that, 
as  in  the  beginning,  they  twain  shall  be  one  flesh, 
with  no  hint  of  authority  or  precedence  on  the  part 
of  either. 

The  ideally  perfect  marriage  then,  is,  that  in  which 
tlie  wliole  mind  and  heart  and  will  of  husband  and 
wife  are  perfectly  united;  in  which  their  purposes, 
sympathies,  desires,  activities,  perfectly  blend.  Per- 
fect marriage  requires  the  entire  agreement  of  two 
equal  and  consenting  wills;  not  the  merging  of  one 
will  in  the  other ;  not  authority  on  one  side  and  sub- 
mission on  the  other :  but  the  perfect  union  of  tw{j 
who,  though  different,  are  in  all  respects  equal 


The  HoMschold  and  the  Hojuc, 


i'3 


I  am  quite  aware  tliat  tlicrc  are  but  few  ideal 
marriages,  as  there  are  few  ideal  schools  or  churches 
or  governments;  and  yet  it  is  of  the  highest  impor- 
tance that  we  recognize  the  ideal,  and  come  as  near 
to  the  realization  of  it  as  we  can. 

But  the  okl  question  comes  up  again  in  another 
shape :  Suppose  this  perfect  harmony  does  not  exist 
between  husband  and  wife,  what  then  ?  Must  not 
one  or  the  other  have  power  to  decide  in  cases  of 
disagreement,  and  must  it  not  be  understood  luliicli 
one  ?  By  no  means.  Two  equal  partners  in  busi- 
ness may  disagree,  will  certainly  disagree,  from  time 
to  time,  about  their  transactions :  is  power  there- 
fore given  to  one  of  them  to  decide  in  all  cases  of 
disagreement?  Of  course,  no  man  would  ever  enter 
into  partnership  with  the  understanding  that  in  all 
such  cases  he  was  to  submit.  Yet  men  contrive  to 
live  together  in  this  relation  for  many  years,  each 
possessing  equal  powers  with  the  other,  and  the  two 
composing  their  differences,  as  they  arise,  in  a  spirit 
of  harmony  ;  sometimes  one  yielding,  and  sometimes 
the  other.  Usually  in  such  a  case  there  is  a  division 
of  labor  and  responsibility ;  the  one  taking  one 
department  of  the  business,  and  the  other  another 
department,  and  each  in  his  own  department  having 
the  controllimx  voice.  Somethins:  like  this  miijlit  be 
done  in  the  family.     At  all   events,  I   am  convinced 


J  J  4       Working  People  and  tJieir  Employers. 


that  the  less  we  have  of  authority  on  one  side,  and 
submission  on  the  other,  in  the  marriage  rehition,  the 
happier  we  shall  all  be  in  that  relation  ;  that  the 
agreement  of  equals  is  much  better  for  both  than 
mastership  for  the  one  and  servantship  foi*  the  other, 
even  though  the  rule  of  tiie  master  may  be  just  ahd 
kind,  and  the  obedience  of  the  servant  free  and 
willing. 

Of  course,  absolutism  is  better  than  anarchy  in  the 
family  as  in  the  state  ;  but  the  perfect  law  of  liberty 
is  far  better  than  either. 

Therefore  I  trust  that  in  your  family  life  tliis  may 
be  the  idea  recognized 'and  striven  after.  I  hope 
you  will  remember  that  in  the  Christian  family  the 
rights  of  the  husband  and  the  wife  are  exactly  equal; 
that  the  one  has  no  more  right  to  dictate  and  de- 
nounce than  the  other.  Autliority  and  subjection 
are  terms  of  the  curse,  which  ought,  after  nineteen 
centuries  of  Christianity,  to  disappear  from  the 
vocabulary  of  wedlock. 

I  have  reasons  for  believing  that  the  tyrants  do 
not  all  sit  upon  thrones.  There  are  husbands  and 
fathers  who  rule  their  households  with  a  rod  of  iron  : 
enforcing  their  mandates  upon  wives  and  cliildren,  if 
not  with  violence,  at  least  with  imperious  sternness, 
keeping  the  whole  family  in  awe  of  their  despotic 
authority.     There   are  men  who  seem   to  think  that 


The  Household  and  the  Home.  1 1 5 


tlicir  wives  have  no  opinions,  no  tastes,  no  w  slies,  no 
rights,  that  they  are  bound  to  respect ;  tliat  it  is  only 
for  their  royal  selves,  —  to  serve  their  needs,  to 
gratify  their  desires,  to  minister  to  their  pleasure,  — 
that  the  family  was  ordained.  This  sacred  relation  is 
outrageously  profaned  and  abused  when  such  a  spirit 
dwells  in  the  one  who  calls  himself  the  master  of  the 
house. 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  understood  as  suggesting,  how- 
ever, that  there  are  no  faults  on  the  other  side  of  the 
house.  If  there  are  tyrants  among  men,  there  are 
scolds  among  women.  The  unhappiness  of  the  family 
relation  is  not  due  to  the  one  sex  more  than  to  the 
other.  The  wrongs  that  women  suffer  at  the  hands 
of  men  have  been  pretty  fully  set  forth  of  late,  and 
I  have  no  disposition  to  overlook  them  ;  but  if  the 
men  were  to  get  up  a  series  of  conventions  setting 
forth  the  evils  under  which  they  are  suffering,  —  the 
extravagance,  the  frivolity,  the  indolence,  the  ex- 
asperating pettishness,  that  afflict  them  and  try  their 
souls,  —  they  might  make  a  pretty  strong  representa- 
tion. But  that  such  a  course  of  action  would  be 
very  foolish  and  injurious  to  themselves,  as  well  as  to 
the  other  sex,  appears  to  me  very  plain.  The  effect 
of  setting  the  two  sexes  against  each  other  in  battle 
array,  of  hurling  reproaches  and  recriminations  from 
the  one  side  to  the  other,  of  reciting  and  magnifying 


1 1 6       Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

the  wrongs  done  by  one  to  the  other,  is  and  must  be 
evil  and  only  evil.  You  cannot  mend  matters  of  this 
sort  by  public  meetings.  They  will  not  make  hus- 
bands any  less  tyrannical,  I  am  sure  ;  and  I  doubt 
whether  they  will  make  wives  any  more  amiable. 
You  cannot  reform  and  elevate  the  family  by  blowing 
a  breeze  of  political  agitation  over  the  land,  any  more 
than  you  can  cure  disease  by  statute  and  proclama- 
tion. The  remedy  for  the  disorders  of  the  household 
must  come  from  other  sources.  By  the  recognition 
of  a  higher  ideal,  by  the  growth  of  a  purer  Christian- 
ity, by  the  faithful  and  patient  effort  of  both  husbands 
and  wives  to  help  and  serve  each  other  in  this  rela- 
tion, by  ceasing  to  quarrel  about  rights,  and  think- 
ing more  of  the  privileges,  the  opportunities,  the 
blessings  of  the  family,  —  by  such  means  as  these,  the 
mischiefs  of  the  home  will  be  most  surely  mended, 
and  the  best  welfare  secured. 

But  I  must  make  haste  to  add  one  word  concern- 
ing the  ruling  of  the  household,  as  it  affects  the 
children.  In  their  earliest  years,  they  are  utterly 
helpless  and  dependent;  and  this  fact  gives  to  their 
parents  authority  over  them.  The  relation  between 
the  parents,  which  is  that  of  equals,  is  wholly  differ- 
ent from  that  of  the  parent  to  the  child,  which  is  that 
of  ruler  and  subject.  The  parents  have  not  only  a 
right,  but  it  is  their  duty,  to  govern  their  childrea 


The  Household  and  the  Home,  1 1 7 


The  iguoi'iince  and  inexperience  of  the  children 
makes  it  their  duty.  It  is  my  duty  to  restrain  my 
chihl  from  thrusting  his  hand  into  the  fire,  or  from 
throwing  himself  down  the  staircase,  in  his  infancy ; 
and  it  is  equally  my  duty,  when  he  grows  a  little 
older,  to  keep  him  from  evil  society  and  bad  books 
and  hurtful  habits.  It  is  my  duty  to  train  him  up  in 
ways  of  industry  and  prudence  and  honesty.  He  will 
not  of  his  own  accord  enter  these  ways;  and  for 
the  sake  of  his  future,  I  must  lead  him  into  them. 
Knowing  better  than  he  does  what  is  good  for  him, 
what  course  he  ought  to  take  in  childhood  to  reach  a 
virtuous  and  prosperous  manhood,  it  is  my  duty  to 
guide  him  in  that  course,  even  though  he  may  be 
strongly  inclined  to  walk  in  another  direction. 

But,  while  the  exercise  of  a  firm  and  just  authority 
by  parents  over  their  children  is  always  necessary, 
yet  the  fact  must  always  be  kept  in  mind,  that  these 
children  are  by  and  by  to  pass  out  from  under  the 
authority  of  their  parents  into  freedom.  The  busi- 
ness of  the  parents  is  therefore  to  train  them  for  the 
liberty  with  whi^h  they  are  soon  to  be  intrusted.  It 
is  our  duty  to  care  for  our  children  in  such  a  way 
that  they  shall  be  enabled  shortly  to  care  for  them- 
selves ;  to  govern  them  in  such  a  way  that  they  shall 
be  able,  on  coming  to  their  majority,  to  govern 
themselves.     This    involves  the   steady   enlargement 


1 1 8      Working  People  and  theh   Employers. 


of  the  liberty  of  the  child,  from  the  moment  when 
he  begins  to  use  his  reason^  Children  learn  to  walk 
by  walking,  to  talk  by  talking,  to  sing  by  sing- 
ing; and  they  can  learn  in  no  other  way.  Many 
tumbles  on  the  floor,  many  blunders  in  orthoepy  and 
syntax,  many  false  notes  in  music,  are  certain  inci- 
dents of  their  progress.  If  they  are  allowed  to  make 
no  mistakes  they  will  make  no  progress.  So  with 
their  moral  training.  There  must  be  government, 
but  there  must  not  be  despotism.  Some  liberty  of 
choice  must  be  allowed  to  them,  and  they  must  be 
taught  to  use  their  liberty.  They  must  be  counselled, 
warned,  guided ;  if  need  be,  restrained ;  but  no  more 
authority  should  be  used  than  is  absolutely  necessary. 
"Because  I  say  so,"  is  the  very  last  reason  to  give  for 
a  command  or  a  prohibition.  "Because  it  is  right" 
or  "wise,"  these  are  the  reasons  which  ought  to  be 
most  used  in  directing  the  child's  action.  Reason 
and  love  are  commonly  more  potent  than  autocratic 
will,  in  securing  a  cheerful  obedience. 

I  can  sum  up  all  that  has  been  said  about  the  rul- 
ing of  the  household,  by  saying  that  the  rights  of  the 
husband  and  the  wife  are  exactly  equal ;  each  has  a 
right  to  claim  from  the  other  respect,  sympathy,  and 
affection  ;  that  the  rights  of  parents  and  children 
are  reciprocal,  the  children  having  a  right  to  the 
(iare  of   their  parents,   and  to   ji\st  such   a  measure 


The  IIo2tscJiold  and  the  Home. 


of  liberty  for  tliemsclves  at  ovcny  sta^c  of  their 
development  as  they  can  safely  and  [)r()fitably  use ; 
and  the  parents  having  the  right,  within  these  limits, 
to  the  deference  and  obedience  of  their  children.  If 
the  husband  treats  his  wife  as  thougli  she  -^vere  his 
inferior,  as  though  her  opinion  were  not  just  as  much 
to  be  regarded,  her  will  just  as  much  to  be  respected 
as  his  own  in  fiimily  affairs,  the  wife  is  wronged.  If 
the  wife  by  her  extravagance,  her  inefficiency,  her 
petulance,  embarrasses  and  annoys  her  husband,  he 
is  wronged.  If  the  .  parents  neglect  their  children, 
or  indulge  them  too  freely,  or  tyrannize  over  them 
too  sternly,  the  children  are  wronged.  If  the  chil- 
dren refuse  to  their  parents  the  honor  and  ol)cdicnce 
that  are  their  due,  the  parents  are  wronged.  But 
too  much  talk  of  rights  and  wrongs  is  pernicious. 
This  is  the  letter  that  killcth,  but  there  is  a  spirit 
that  giveth  life.  In  the  family,  as  under  tlie  divine 
government,  love  is  the  fulfilling  of  the  law.  A 
true  and  deep  affection  solves  all  these  questions 
of  obligation.  Wherever  it  exists,  there  is  no  more 
dispute  about  rights,  no  more  complaint  of  wrongs. 
The  deference  of  the  husband,  the  homage  of  the 
wife,  the  authority  of  the  parents,  the  obedience  of 
the  children,  are  no  more  cold,  severe,  meclianical, 
but  luminous  and  beautiful  with  heavenly  liglit  and 
grace. 


I20      Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

The  sacredness  of  tlie  family  relation,  the  ends  it 
is  designed  to  accomplish  in  restraining-  from  sin  and 
in  leading  to  virtue,  the  conditions  upon  which  it  is 
happily  founded  and  wisely  ruled,  have  thus  passed 
before  our  minds  in  rapid  review.  I  do  not  know 
that  what  has  been  said  has  any  more  application  to 
one  class  of  persons  than  to  another ;  but  I  have 
addressed  these  'words  to  the  working  people,  be- 
cause T  know  that  when  the  home  is  happy  the  labor 
is  always  light.  The  thought  of  the  love  and  cheer 
awaiting  him  when  his  day's  work  is  done  takes 
the  sting  from  the  workman's  toil.  And  I  could 
think  of  no  better  service  that  I  could  hope  to  ren- 
der him,  than  to  show  him,  as  well  as  I  could,  the 
foundations  upon  which  the  happiness  of  his  home 
could  136  most  securely  built. 


VI. 

SOCIETY   AND    SOCIETIES. 

In  civilized  communities,  men  associate  themselves 
for  various  purposes.  The  greater  part  of  the  world's 
work  is  done  by  associated  effort.  Not  only  does 
combination  result  in  greater  efficiency  of  lal)or,  but 
it  is  pleasanter  for  the  workmen  to  labor  in  company 
than  to  labor  alone.  A  great  part  of  the  bitterness 
and  burden  of  toil  is  removed  by  tlie  fellowship  of 
labor.  When  I  was  a  farmer's  boy  I  found  it  hard  to 
work  alone.  The  farm-work  was  not  particularly 
distasteful  to  me  if  there  was  anybody  to  work 
with;  even  the  company  of  a  team  of  horses  was 
better  than  none :  but  to  go  away  by  myself  in  a 
lonely  field,  and  work  all  day,  cutting  down  sprouts 
or  picking  up  stones,  with  nobody  to  talk  with, --- 
that  was  tedious  business.     And  T  suspect  that   the 

121 


122       Woi'king  People  and  their  Employei^s, 


thing  which  draws  so  many  boys  from  the  farms  to 
the  towns  is,  more  than  any  thing  else,  the  love  of 
society.  *  Men  work  together,  therefore,  not  only 
because  it  is  more  profitable,  but  because  it  is,  as 
a  rule,  more  agreeable. 

For  purposes  of  education  they  are  also  associated. 
To  this  result  we  find  the  same  double  motive  of 
interest  and  pleasure  contributing.  Economy  of 
labor  is  not  the  only  reason  for  gathering  students 
into  schools :  they  generally  learn  more  rapidly  in 
school  than  at  home ;  they  inspire  and  stimulate  one 
another ;  and  they  enjoy  the  association.  The  sports 
and  the  friendships  of  the  schools  afford  most  of  them 
an  enjoyment  that  greatly  lightens  the  labor  required 
of  them. 

Benevolence,  too,  brings  men  together.  There 
are  societies  for  the  promotion  of  temperance,  and 
societies  for  the  relief  of  suffering ;  and  societies, 
commonly  secret,  for  mutual  assistance  and  protec- 
tion. Doubtless  desire  to  do  good  leads  many  to 
urite  with  such  societies ;  doubtless  others  join  them 
in  the  hope  of  getting  some  selfish  advantage  from 
them  :  but  the  social  opportunity  they  offer  is  one 
strong  attraction  by  which  they  recruit  their  ranks. 

For  purposes  of  entertninment,  society  is  sought. 
The  lecture,  the  concert,  tlio  oratorio,  the  opera,  the 
drama,  are  offered  always   to  assemblages  of  people. 


Society  and  Societies. 


This  is  not  only  because  the  expense  of  siicli  enter- 
tainments is  lightened  by  dividing  it  among  a  large 
number  of  people,  but  because  the  pleasure  derived 
from  them  is  greatly  enhanced  by  enjoying  them  in 
company.  Not  only  is  it  generally  impossil^le  for  an 
orator  or  a  singer  to  speak  or  sing  well  witliout  th(3 
inspiration  of  numbers ;  it  is  equally  impossible  for 
an  auditor  to  hear  well  without  the  same  inspiration. 
If  the  performance  in  the  presence  of  a  single  person 
were  in  every  respect  as  good  as  in  the  crowded  hall., 
his  enjoyment  of  it  would  be  greatly  lessened  by  the 
want  of  company. 

The  same  principle  holds  good  in  our  religious  life. 
The  churches  as  well  as  the  workshops,  tlie  schools, 
and  the  secret  lodges,  are  organized  under  this  law. 
Three  objects  are  sought  in  the  churches,  —  worship, 
instruction,  and  benevolent  activity.  It  is  true  that 
one  may  worship  alone  acceptably ;  but  it  is  also  true 
that  this  highest  act  of  the  soul  is  sometimes  made 
more  delightful  and  more  profitable  by  companion- 
ship. Praise  is  one  chief  element  of  worship ;  and, 
though  one  may  sing  praises  to  God  alone,  how  much 
is  added  to  the  fervor  and  enthusiasm  of  our  shiG^ino: 
when  we  join  with  the  great  congregation  !  Pra3'cr 
is  the  other  act  of  worship;  and  while  secret  piayer 
is  indispensable  to  the  maintenance  of  the  spiritual 
life,  the  helps  of  social  praj^cr  are  also  indispensable. 


124       Workmg  People  and  their  Employers. 

So  far  as  instruction  is  provided  by  our  churches, 
mi2:ht  not  that  be  <T:ained  without  association  ? 
Might  we  not  read  our  Bibles  and  our  religious 
books  at  home?  and  would  not  the  instruction  thus 
obtained  be,  on  the  whole,  more  complete  and  more 
valuable  than  that  which  we  get  from  the  pulpit  ? 
Throughout  Christendom,  every  Sunday,  much  good 
preaching  is  heard,  along  with  some  that  would  be 
called  indifferent,  and  not  a  little  that  must  be  pro- 
nounced very  poor;  but  the  members  of  these  con- 
gregations could,  at  a  trifling  expense,  have  provided 
themselves  with  printed  sermons  of  a  high  order. 
Why  would  it  not  be  better,  so  far  as  religious 
instruction  is  concerned,  if  the  people  of  our  congre- 
gations should  stay  at  home  on  Sundays  and  read  good 
sermons,  instead  of  going  to  church  to  hear  in  many 
cases  indifferent  or  poor  ones?  The  common  answer 
to  this  question  is,  that  the  truth  uttered  by  the  living 
voice  is  more  impressive  than  that  read  out  of  a 
l^ook  ;  that  a  poor  sermon  spoken  is  more  effective 
upon  the  average  man  than  a  good  sermon  read. 
There  is  truth  in  this  answer,  but  it  is  not  the  whole 
ti'uth.  The  reason  why  it  is  better  for  people  lo 
receive  instruction  in  the  congregation  than  to  study 
privately  is,  that  the  congregation  is  itself  a  stimulus 
not  only  to  the  preacher,  but  to  every  auditor.  The 
mind  of  every  hearer  is  quickened,  his  emotions  are 


Society  and  Societies,  1 2 


arouscG.,  liis  bettor  nature  is  warmed  into  life,  Ijy 
the  influenee  of  the  assembly.  It  is  not  the  living 
voiee,  so  niueli  as  the  living  audience,  that  makes  a 
tolerable  sermon  heard  from  the  pulpit  more  impres- 
sive than  a  better  sermon  read  from  the  book  in  tiie 
closet. 

In  the  great  work  of  benevolent  activity,  as  iji 
every  other  work,  the  same  principle  applies.  It  is 
easier  and  pleasanter  to  do  good  in  company  than 
alone.  Not  only  by  combination  and  division  of 
labor  is  the  work  lightened  and  facilitated,  but  the 
enthusiasm  and  esj^rit  de  corps  that  spring  up  in  the 
body  of  Avorkers  are  a  great  help  in  the  work. 

We  have  seen  that  the  social  principle  enters  into 
nearly  every  department  of  human  life,  infusing 
itself  through  our  work,  our  study,  our  play,  our 
charity,  our  religion.  And  not  only  does  this  ele- 
ment control  every  phase  of  life :  it  creates  a  depart- 
ment of  its  own.  Everywhere  we  find  people 
associating,  not  for  such  purposes  as  we  have  named, 
but  for  the  sake  of  society.  There  are  assemblages 
called  together  simply  for  social  purposes.  In  the 
rural  districts,  we  see  the  housewives  gathering  with 
their  knitting-work  at  one  of  the  neighbors'  houses 
for  an  afternoon  chat  and  a  social  cup  of  tea,  and  the 
young  rustics  assembling  from  time  to  time  in  the 
evening,  to  en,2:age  in  merry  games.      In  the  villages 


26      Working  People  and  their  Einployers, 


and  the  cities,  the  social  life  finds  expression  in  many 
ways  that  I  need  not  describe ;  some  of  which  are 
good,  and  others  of  which  are  mingled  with  much 
evil. 

So  constant  and  universal  are  the  social  forces  in 
the  life  of  human  beings,  that  the  race  as  a  whole 
is  often  spoken  of  as  society.  The  attraction  that 
binds  men  together  in  society  is  apparently  stronger 
than  any  other  principle  of  human  nature.  It  be- 
comes, then,  an  important  question,  what  our  rela- 
tions to  society  should  be  ;  how  these  all-pervading 
influences  shall  affect  our  lives. 

The  design  of  the  Creator  was,  that  every  one  of 
his  creatures  should  have  a  character  of  his  own. 
One  of  the  ends  most  plainly  sought  by  him  is  the 
individuality  of  each  distinct  existence.  No  two 
faces  are  alike,  we  often  say ;  and  it  is  equally  true 
that  no  two  minds  are  alike  :  tastes  and  preferences 
vary  indefinitely.  Now,  it  is  of  the  utmost  impor- 
tance that  tliis  individuality  be  preserved  and 
cherished.  A  landscape  is  not  beautiful  because  the 
objects  it  shows  us  are  all  alike,  but  because  they 
are  all  different,  yet  are  harmoniously  grouped  and 
blended  in  the  view.  An  art-gallery  interests  us,  and 
is  of  value  to  its  owner,  not  because  the  paintings  or 
the  statues  are  all  alike,  but  because  each  is  a  different 
representation  of  beauty.     Five  hu  ndred  copies  of  the 


Society  and  Societies.  127 

Sistinc  ^ladouiia  arniiigcd  in  rows  upon  tlio  wall  of 
the  academy  would  offend  us.  Iteration  is  wearisome, 
no  matter  how  l^eautiful  the  expression  nuiy  be. 
Would  you  like  to  read  a  book  that  consisted  of 
TkW  endless  repetition  of  a  single  sentence?  What 
nature  would  be  if  all  its  objects  were  cast  in  one 
mould,  what  art  would  be  if  it  were  only  the  mo 
notonous  repetition  of  the  same  forms  and  colors, 
what  literature  would  be  if  it  were  the  ceaseless 
I'ecurrence  of  the  same  words  in  the  same  order,  — 
that  would  society  be  if  all  men  were  alike.  When 
each  man  is  permitted  to  develop  his  own  individu- 
Jity,  the  intellectual  Avealth  of  society  is  increased ; 
but  when  this  individuality  is  repressed,  when  men 
are  made  to  conform  to  certain  fixed  standards  of 
thought  and  custom,  society  is  impoverished.  Yet 
the  tendency  is  very  strong,  in  all  states  of  society, 
to  repress  individuality. 

Of  course  it  is  a  necessary  condition  of  society, 
lliat  individuals  shall  conform  in  some  respects  to  the 
wishes  of  their  fellows.  Men  cannot  associate  in 
business  without  self-denial,  without  subordinating 
their  views  and  preferences  in  certain  particulars  to 
those  of  others.  An  utter  wilfulness,  an  obstinate, 
perverse  disposition,  is  destructive  of  society.  It 
becomes,  tlierefore,  an  important  question  for  every 
one  of   us,  just  how  far  we  ought    to    govern  our- 


128       Wor/lifig  People  and  their  Employers, 

selves  by  social  laws  and  oust  )ms,  and  how  far  we 
ought  to  manifest  the  life  that  is  in  us  in  our  own 
way. 

Society,  in  all  circles,  is  quite  peremptory  in  its 
demands.  It  lays  down  certain  laws  of  behavior; 
it  prescribes  certain  styles  of  dress ;  it  has  fashions 
in  every  thing.  There  are  books  that  it  is  fashion- 
able to  read,  and  dishes  that  it  is  flishionable  to  eat, 
and  churches  that  it  is  fasliionable  to  attend,  and 
stores  that  it  is  fashionable  to  patronize,  and  opinions 
that  it  is  fashionable  to  hold ;  and  society  is  rather 
inclined  to  be  intolerant  of  those  who  will  not  follow 
all  its  flishions.  There  are  social  customs  that  we  may 
safely  and  profitably  follow.  To  disregard  them  all, 
to  place  ourselves  outside  of  society,  and  make  war 
upon  it,  is  almost  as  bad  as  to  be  its  bond-servant. 
One  may  err  in  setting  his  will  against  society  in  tri- 
fling matters.  There  are  requirements  of  custom  that 
in  themselves  are  neither  right  nor  wrong:  they 
involve  no  moral  principle  whatever :  it  is  as  easy  to 
conform  to  them  as  not ;  and  to  stand  out  about  sucli 
small  things  belittles  the  mind. 

It  is  clear,  however,  that  society  has  no  right  to 
interfere  with  our  opinions  of  truth,  with  our  convic- 
tions of  duty.  Every  one  of  us  must  give  account 
for  himself  to  God.  Every  one  of  us  ought  to  be 
fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind  of  the  rightfulness 


Socicly  and  Sociciics.  129 


of  any  practice  in  which  moral  principle  is  involved. 
The  attempt  to  enforce  upon  individuals  conventional 
notions  of  truth  and  duty,  right  and  wrong,  is  both 
absurd  and  wicked.  Of  course,  there  is  one  limit  to 
the  liberty  of  individuals,  even  in  this  direction.  No 
man  may  be  permitted  to  injure  his  fellow-men  for 
conscience'  sake.  But  in  cases  where  his  conduct 
aflects  nobody  but  himself,  each  man  must  be  allowed 
to  decide  for  himself;  and  any  attempt  on  the  part 
of  society  to  prescribe  his  opinions,  or  rule  his  prac- 
tices, is  mischievous  in  the  extreme. 

The  problem  we  are  considering  is  not  easily 
solved,  but  it  is  very  easily  stated.  In  society,  as  in 
every  other  organized  existence,  beauty  and  perfec- 
tion are  secured  by  unity  in  variety,  the  harmoni- 
ous combination  of  parts  that  differ.  To  secure  the 
unity  that  is  necessary,  it  is  needful  that  there  should 
be  some  conformity  to  social  standards  and  usages. 
To  secure  the  variety  that  is  desirable,  it  is  well  that 
the  individuality  of  every  man  and  woman  Ije  j^cr- 
fcctly  developed.  It  is  necessary,  therefore,  to  learn 
how  to  reconcile  these  two  contending  obligations; 
how  to  be  in  society,  and  not  of  it;  how  to  respect 
yourself,  your  own  judgment  and  cons(  ience,  and  yet 
to  love  your  neighbor  as  yourself;  whcu  to  iN'ith- 
stand  the  social  influences,  and  when  to  yield  to 
them.     It  is  not  always  easy  to  tell  in  suuli  a  ca^e 


130      Working  People  and  tlieir  Employers, 


what  we  ought  to  do ;  but  it  is  useful  to  know  what 
the  elements  arc  that  enter  into  the  problem. 

The  law  of  social  intercourse  is,  of  course,  the 
law  of  love.  The  charity  that  envieth  not,  that 
soeketh  not  her  own,  that  is  not  easily  provoked,  that 
tliinketh  no  evil,  is  the  only  trait  that  can  qualify 
any  one  to  make  the  right  use  of  society.  No  profit 
able  social  intercourse  can  ever  take  place  between 
persons  that  are  more  eager  to  receive  than  to  confer 
favor  and  honor.  A  true  self- forge tfuln ess,  a  sincere 
desire  to  make  others  happy,  is  the  essential  quali- 
fication for  social  life.  The  best  gifts  avail  nothing 
to  one  who  is  lacking  in  this.  In  the  various  social 
©rganizations,  there  are  those  who  want  the  offices 
and  the  conspicuous  places,  and  are  sour  and  cross  if 
they  cannot  get  them.  Among  associations  of  mu- 
sicians, I  have  heard  it  alleged  that  some  are  always 
taking  offence  if  leading  parts  are  not  assigned  them. 
In  the  churches,  people  have  been  known  to  com- 
plain because  not  enough  notice  was  taken  of  them. 
I'liosc  who  never  in  their  lives  were  suspected  of 
making  the  slightest  effort  to  increase  the  welfare 
or  the  happiness  of  their  neighbors,  often  gj-umbh' 
because  their  neighbors  are  not  more  Cilige.it  in 
seeking  them  out  and  showing  them  kindness.  Snch 
a  spirit  as  this  makes  society  impossible. 

Individualit)^,    tr  ictableness,    charity,  —  these    are 


Society  and  Societies,  131 


the  three  elements  of  the  best  soeuil  life.  \\\  our 
intereourse  with  our  fellows,  it  is  of  the  utmost 
importance  that  we  stand  firmly  by  our  own  'con- 
victions of  truth  and  duty,  that  we  be  easily  en- 
treated in  things  indifferent,  and  that  we  govern  all 
our  conduct  by  the  law  of  Christian  love. 

The  family  life  of  working-people,  of  which  I  wrote 
in  the  preceding  chapter,  does  not  greatly  differ 
in  its  obligations  or  its  privileges  from  that  of  other 
people ;  but  the  social  life  of  mechanics  and  laborers 
is,  in  certain  important  respects,  unlike  that  of  the 
wealthier  classes;  and  I  desire  to  speak  now,  briefly, 
of  society  as  it  offers  itself  to  working-men  and 
working-women. 

1.  The  social  relations  of  working-people  in  their 
work  may  be  of  great  advantage  to  them.  Among 
shopmates,  a  deep  and  lasting  friendship  oft*^*-, 
springs  up.  You  cannot  always  pick  your  com- 
pany in  your  work,  but  you  can  hardly  be  so  unfortu- 
nate as  not  to  find  much  that  is  pleasant  and  helpful. 
Because  your  opportunities  of  society  outside  of 
your  labor  are  by  the  necessities  of  the  case  some 
what  limited,  you  ought  to  make  the  most  of  these 
friendships  with  your  workfellows,  and  to  derive 
all  the  benefit  you  can  from  your  association  with 
them. 

2.  It  will  be  wise,  however,  for  you  to  seek  for 


iT,2       Working  People  and  tJieir  Employers, 

opportunities  of  social  intercourse  in  your  leisure 
hours.  For  your  own  good,  and  for  the  good  of 
the  community,  you  ought  to  bear  your  part  in  the 
development  of  social  life  It  does  a  man  good, 
who  works  hard  all  day  at  some  disagreeable  em- 
ployment, to  put  on  clean  raiment  of  an  evening, 
and  go  out  into  good  company.  The  refining  influ- 
ence thus  exerted  upon  him  he  cannot  safely  forego. 
It  is  not  only  for  the  sake  of  his  manners  that 
he  needs  this  social  culture,  but  for  the  sake  of  his 
morals  as  well.  Workday  life  is  full  of  rivalries  and 
competitions,  of  cheating  and  over-reaching,  of  an 
endless  suppressed  warfare  among  men.  "  Every 
man  for  himself,"  is  the  maxim  of  traffic;  and  every 
man  is  obliged  to  look  out  for  himself,  or  he  will  be 
fleeced  and  ruined.  This  is  done  for  the  most  part 
in  lawful  and  polite  and  even  obsequious  ways,  but 
it  is  done.  No  matter  what  station  of  life  you  are 
in,  there  is  need  of  constant  vigilance  to  secure  your 
rights.  Of  course  when  you  go  home,  if  you  have  a 
home,  you  pass  out  of  this  arena  of  strife  and  compe- 
tition into  a  different  atmosphere,  where  nobody  i^ 
trying  to  get  the  advantage  of  you ;  where  the  law  of 
love  rules  instead  of  the  law  of  competition.  And 
it  is  one  of  the  greatest  blessings  a  home  gives  us, 
that  it  affords  us  such  a  refugee  from  the  angry  con- 
tests of  the  world.     But  it  is  good  for  us  also  to  fee] 


Society  and  Societies.  133 

that  this  spirit  of  good-will  and  mutual  kindness  pre- 
vails outside  of  our  homes.  And  the  supposition  is, 
that  our  soeial  life  is  controlled  by  this  spirit.  It  is 
true  that  jealousies  and  envyings  and  rivalries  do 
find  their  Avay  into  society ;  but  the  theory  is,  and  to 
a  great  extent  it  is  the  practice  too,  that  good- will 
and  kindness  prevail  in  social  circles.  Therefore  it 
is  good  for  us  all  to  escape  from  the  clash  and  clamor 
of  business  now  and  then,  and  meet  our  fellows,  not 
on  a  footing  of  rivalry,  but  on  a  footing  of  friendli- 
ness :  to  exercise  ourselves,  not  in  getting  the  advan- 
tage of  them,  nor  in  guarding  ourselves  against  their 
attempts  to  get  the  advantage  of  us,  but  in  shoAving 
them  respect  and  polite  attention.  If  Scrooge  meets 
his  neighbor  in  a  friendly  way  at  a  sociable,  he  will 
be  a  little  less  likely  to  gouge  him  the  next  day  \\\ 
a  bargain.  The  enmities  that  spring  up  between 
neighbors  are  often  prevented  or  healed  by  bring- 
ing them  together  socially.  It  seems  to  me,  that  if 
it  were  not  for  these  occasional  opportunities  of 
friendly  intercourse,  —  these  assemblies  that  have  no 
other  purpose  than  to  foster  the  social  sentirneiits, 
—  we  should  ere  long  relapse  into  barbarism.  It  is 
jnpossible  to  exaggerate  the  humanizing  and  amelior- 
ating influence  exerted  by  them  upon  the  rough  and 
bitter  life  through  which  we  are  daily  passing. 

3.   The  methods  of  dixc.'rsion  with  which  you  shall 


134      Working  People  and  their  Employers, 


fill  up  your  social  hours,  you  must  choose  for  your- 
selves. You  are  often  invited  to  evening  parties 
more  or  less  public,  some  of  which  are  conducted  in 
such  a  way  as  to  be  entirely  unobjectionable,  and 
some  of  which  are  not.  The  mischief  of  such  assem 
blies  is  in  the  excesses  to  which  they  lead,  and  the 
late  hours  to  which  they  are  frequently  protracted. 
Many  of  your  parties  are  dancing  parties.  I  have 
never  been  able  to  believe  that  it  is  a  sin  to  dance ; 
but  it  is  true  that  it  is  a  pastime  more  liable  to  abuse 
than  many  others,  and  that  you  can  hardly  guard  too 
carefully  against  the  evils  that  grow  out  of  it.  As  it 
is  wholly  a  muscular  exercise,  I  should  doubt  its  use- 
fulness as  a  frequent  recreation  for  persons  whose 
work  is  nearly  all  muscular.  Some  lighter  and 
quieter  enjoyment  would  be  preferable,  —  something 
that  would  divert  the  mind  without  further  fatiguing 
the  body.  Diversions  that  bring  you  into  the 
society  of  corrupt  companions,  or  that  overtax  your 
strength,  are  always  pernicious. 

Public  shows  and  performances  often  invite  you, 
promising  to  gratify  at  once  the  love  of  recreation 
and  the  love  of  society,  —  two  passions  of  human 
nature  that  are  distinct,  but  hardly  ever  separate  I 
should  be  far  from  condemning  these  exhibitions  by 
wholesale.  It  is  necessary,  I  suppose,  that  the  people 
should  have  diversions  provided  for  them ;  and  sonve 


Society  and  Societies.  135 


;)f  tliese  travelling  shows  arc  probably  iiinocuMit  and 
good  enough.  In  general  it  may  be  said,  first,  that 
performances  in  which  either  immorality  or  indeli- 
cacy is  even  so  much  as  suggested,  ought  to  l)o 
shunned.  Never  attend  any  place  of  amusement 
in  which  you  would  not  be  glad  to  have  your  mother 
or  your  sister  sitting  by  your  side.  In  the  second 
place,  only  a  limited  amount  of  this  sort  of  diversion 
is  wholesome.  The  habit  that  some  working-people 
have  of  running;  to  all  the  shows  that  come  to  town 
is  a  very  bad  habit.  It  costs  a  good  deal,  for  one 
thing.  The  money  that  is  spent  in  this  way  by  some 
families  would,  if  saved  and  invested,  provide  them 
with  homes  in  a  few  years.  I  knew  one  family  that 
actually  stripped  their  beds  of  the  clothing  that  made 
them  comfortable,  and  sold  it,  to  get  money  to  at 
tend  a  circus.  By  far  the  largest  part  of  the  money 
that  is  carried  out  of  this  city  every  year  by  the 
travelling  exhibitions  (and  that  is  no  small  sum) 
comes  from  the  pockets  of  the  working-people.  I 
heard  one  carpenter  tell  another,  a  few  days  ago,  that 
he  had  attended  every  circus  that  had  been  in  the 
city  this  year.  lie  did  not  speak  of  it  as  if  his  case 
was  an  exceptional  one,  and  I  do  not  suppose  that  it 
was.  Surely  a  better  use  could  have  been  found  for 
part  of  the  money  thus  expended. 

But  the  effect  upon  the  mind,  of  such  a  constant 


136      Working  People  and  their  Employers. 


attendance  upon  these  extravagant  performances,  is 
worse  than  the  effect  upon  the  purse.  I  knew  a 
young  mechanic  in  New  York  who  attended  the 
negro-minstrel  entertainments  so  constantly  that  he 
came  to  live  and  move  and  have  his  being  in  the 
atmosphere  of  burnt  cork.  You  could  not  talk  with 
him  ten  minutes  without  finding  out  his  penchant. 
The  grotesque  manners,  the  absurd  expressions,  the 
exaggerated  notions,  that  characterize  their  per- 
formances, were  continually  appearing  in  his  conduct 
and  conversation.  He  seemed  to  be  saturated  with 
negro-minstrelsy,  and  it  oozed  out  at  every  pore. 
What  a  condition  of  mind  that  must  be,  I  leave  you 
to  imagine.  Individuals  outside  of  New  York  have 
been  seen  in  a  similar  state.  The  dissipating,  enfee- 
bling effect  upon  the  mind  and  the  moral  nature  of 
frequent  attendance  upon  these  farcical  and  sensa- 
tional performances  is  pitiful  indeed.  Working- 
people  need  diversion,  and  I  would  not  be  too 
fastidious  in  my  criticism  of  their  methods  of  seeking 
It;  ])ut  it  seems  to  me  that  many  of  them  would 
find  more  solid  enjoyment  by  cultivating  their  tastes 
for  a  higher  order  of  amusements,  such  as  good 
literary  or  scientific  lectures,  fine  concerts,  and  poetic 
readings.  The  taste  for  these  more  elevated  recrea- 
tions can  be  acquired;  and  instead  of  debilitating  the 
mind,  they  give  it  refreshment  and  wholesome  stimulus. 


Society    md  Societies.  137 


1  come  now  to  speak  briefly  of  those  oi'ganizatioiis 
formed  by  working-men,  partly  for  social  purposes, 
and  partly  for  the  improvement  of  tlieir  circum- 
stances. In  almost  all  trades  such  societies  are 
found.  They  have  grown  out  of  the  conflict  be- 
tween labor  and  capital,  and  are  intended  mainly 
for  offensive  and  defensive  warfare.  The  attempt 
has  also  been  made  to  unite  the  guilds  that  represent 
the  various  trades  in  one  great  national  labor  organ- 
ization, so  that  a  concerted  movement  may  be  made 
at  any  time,  by  the  whole  body  of  workmen,  to 
secure  higher  rates  of  wages. 

So  far  as  the  work  of  these  societies  is  of  a  social 
character,  no  fault  can  be  found  with  it.  Working 
men  may  promote,  by  association,  their  own  knowl- 
edge and  enjoyment.  They  may  also  assist  one 
another  to  find  employment,  care  for  one  another 
in  sickness,  shield  one  another  from  temptation. 
Such  efforts  are  worthy  of  all  commendation. 

Besides  this,  they  may  wish  to  consult  about  their 
own  interests ;  and  if  they  do  this  soberly  and 
pea<.*eably,  no  fault  can  be  found.  They  have  a 
perfect  right  to  deliberate  together  concerning  the 
wages  they  are  receiving,  and  to  unite  in  refusing 
to  work  unless  their  wages  are  increased.  The  law 
gives  to  capital  an  immense  advantage  in  permitting 
its   consolidation   in    great    ccMiti'alized    corporations ; 


138       Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

and  neither  law  nor  justice  can  forbid  laborers  to 
combine,  in  order  to  protect  themselves  against  the 
encroachments  of  capital,  so  long  as  they  abstain 
from  the  use  of  violence,  and  rely  upon  reason  and 
moial  influence. 

But  it  needs  no  prophet  to  tell  that  these  societies 
are  liable  to  become  instruments  of  evil  as  well  as 
.  of  good.  It  happens  that  a  lai-ge  proportion  of 
the  members  of  most  of  them  are  ignorant  men, 
whose  passions  are  easily  excited,  and  who  may  be 
led  to  take  very  fanatical  and  absurd  views  of  thc^ 
labor  question.  And  whenever  any  large  number  of 
such  men  are  brought  into  company,  the  devil,  in  the 
form  of  the  demagogue  or  the  charlatan,  comes  also 
among  them.  It  makes  one  sick  and  sad  to  see  the 
kind  of  leaders  to  whom  the  workmen  in  these 
societies  often  intrust  the  management  of  their 
affairs,  —  noisy,  crazy,  crack-brained  creatures,  whose 
capital  stock  of  political  philosophy  consists  of  one 
or  two  half-truths,  and  a  full  assortment  of  lies.  To 
hear  these  blatherskites  talk,  to  read  the  dreadful 
stuff  that  they  write,  and  then  to  think  that  they  are 
ih^  chosen  representatives  of  the  working-people,  Is 
very  discouraging.  We  have  in  this  Commonwealth 
a  few  such  persons,  who  have  been  prominent  in  the 
councils  of  the  labor  leagues,  and  whose  nostrums 
have   been   freely   vended   in   the   shape    of    tracts 


Society  aiici  Societies.  139 


among  the  working-men.  They  are  always  ()[)pose(l 
to  any  peaceful  solution  of  the  labor  question:  they 
want  to  win  by  revolution,  or  not  at  all.  Their  creed 
is  smiply  a  dilution  of  the  doctrines  of  Proudhon^ 
whose  works  they  are  printing  and  distributing,  and 
whose  fundamental  maxim  is,  that  property  is  rob- 
bery. Of  course  intelligent  American  mechanics, 
who  have  been  educated  in  our  common  schools., 
know  too  much  to  be  imposed  upon  by  such  nonsense ; 
and  quickly  refuse  to  follow  such  a  lead.  A  large 
number  of  those  who  constitute  these  associations, 
however,  are  not  intelligent  American  mechanics;  and 
therefore  the  fanatics  often  get  control  of  them,  and 
contrive  to  shape  their  policy. 

Men  in  masses  often  do  very  strange  things.  This 
is  true  not  only  of  working-men,  but  of  all  sorts  of 
men.  When  I  was  in  college,  I  know  that  we  used 
to  do  some  things  as  a  class,  or  as  a  college,  that  few 
of  the  students  would  have  done  if  they  had  been 
alone.  It  is  sometimes  said,  that  in  a  multitude  of 
counsellors  there  is  wisdom ;  but  that  depends  on  the 
kind  of  counsellors.  A  thousand  wise  men  may  be 
wiser  than  one  wise  man ;  but  it  by  no  means  follows 
that  a  thousand  fools  are  wiser  than  one  fool :  on  the 
contrary,  they  may  be  a  thousand  times  as  foolish. 
Those  Uoman  bishops  that  formed  the  Vatican 
council  egged  one  another  on  to  the  almost  unani 


140       Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

mous  promulgation  of  a  dogma  which,  if  they  had 
been  questioned  about  it  singly  beforehand,  the 
majority  of  them  would  have  pronounced  doubtful 
if  not  false.  A  crowd  that  contains  many  sensible 
men  will  sometimes  do  surprisingly  silly  things. 

This  is  the  danger  against  which  these  working- 
men's  societies  must  always  be  on  their  guard.  The 
mob  spirit  sometimes  takes  possession  of  the  body, 
and  no  privilege  of  differing  with  the  crowd  is  will- 
ingly allowed  to  any  workman.  If  violence  is  not 
resorted  to  in  the  quieting  of  dissenters,  there  is  a 
sort  of  social  persecution  not  much  better  than 
violence.  The  person  that  refuses  his  assent  to  the 
measures  resolved  upon  is  denounced  as  a  traitor ; 
and  a  disposition  is  shown  to  make  the  place  too  hot 
for  him.  In  such  persecution  no  fair-minded  man 
will  join ;  to  this  intimidation  no  brave  man  will 
.submit.  Never  sell  out  your  manhood  to  any  man, 
or  set  of  men.  Do  not  be  bribed  or  coaxed  or  bul- 
lied into  doing  what  you  think  is  not  right.  Let 
nobody  decide  for  you  what  is  right.  Make  up  j^our 
own  mind,  and  stand  by  it,  no  matter  what  it  costs. 

These  labor-unions  have  certain  rules  that  cannot 
be  defended  on  any  principle  of  justice.  They  often 
forbid  their  members  to  work  in  company  with  non- 
union men,  and  force  employers  to  discharge  all  such 
persons.     They  will   not  suffer  a  boy  to   learn    their 


Society  and  Societies.  141 


trade,  unless  his  father  belongs  to  tlieir  soeiety.  This 
is  nothing  but  despotism,  despotism  of  the  most 
brutal  sort :  working-men  ought  to  be  ashamed  to 
resort  to  it. 

The  leaders  of  these  societies  tell  us  it  is 
necessary  that  they  should  combine,  to  resist  tlie 
extortions  of  capitalists;  and  that  tlieir  coml)iiialiuiis 
will  amount  to  nothing,  unless  there  is  hrin  discipline 
in  tlieir  ranks.  Yes,  ''  discipline :  "  that  was  pre- 
cisely what  the  lords  of  the  lash  on  the  Southern 
plantations  used  to  call  it;  that  is  just  what  all  the 
despots  that  have  ever  trampled  on  the  liberties  of 
men  have  always  called  it.  The  word  sounds  well ; 
but  sometimes,  when  most  sweetly  spoken,  it  means 
tyranny.  And  I  say  that  any  man  of  proper  spirit 
will  be  careful  how  he  puts  his  neck  into  the  yoke  of 
this  "  discipline  ;  "  and  will  resist  unto  blood,  I'ather 
than  suffer  it  to  be  bound  upon  him  by  any  power 
whatsoever. 

Heaven  forbid  that  I  should  lay  a  straw  in  the 
way  of  working-men  engaged  in  any  just  attempt  to 
improve  their  condition  !  I  know  something  of  their 
lot :  as  farmer's  boy  and  as  mechanic's  apprentice,  I 
have  entered  pretty  fully  into  their  life,  and  tasted 
something  of  its  severities,  and  something,  also,  of 
the  independence  and  manly  dignity  with  wln'ch  it 
may  always  be  clothed;   and  it  is  just  because  alJ 


142       Working  People  and  their  Employers, 


my  sympatliies  are  with  working-men,  tliat  I  want 
to  see  tliem  abstain  from  questionable  and  suicidal 
methods.  They  will  never  prosper  by  violence  or 
injustice  :  light  and  liberty  are  their  only  true  allies. 

I  have  left  myself  but  little  time  to  speak  of  one 
other  social  organization  in  which  working-people 
ought  to  take  a  deep  interest:  I  mean  the  Christian 
Church.  Already  I  have  more  than  once  expressed 
to  you  my  sense  of  the  relation  between  the  religion 
of  Christ  and  your  welfare.  I  think  you  have  seen 
pretty  clearly  that  this  religion  has  done  more  for 
you  than  any  other  instrumentality  on  earth,  and 
that  the  light  which  touches  your  future  with  hope 
and  promise  is  the  light  that  breaks  from  the  gospel 
of  Christ. 

Almost  all  the  legitimate  objects  that  you  seek  in 
your  various  social  organizations,  the  Church,  if 
rightly  viewed  by  you,  would  aid  you  in  securing. 
If  companionship  is  what  you  want,  the  Church  is 
the  fraternity  whose  bond  is  closer  and  more  sacred 
than  any  other ;  if  you  desire  cult'? re,  you  will  find 
t1iat  most  churches  in  these  'days  recognize  the  fact 
that  knowledge  is  one  of  the  Christian  graces,  and 
strive  to  enrich  the  minds,  as  well  as  to  purify  the 
hearts,  of  their  members ;  if  you  crave  diversion, 
that  too  is  provided  for  to  a  sufficient  degree.  For 
the   Church  must  have  it  for  its  aim,  to  build  up  the 


Society  and  Societies.  143 

vvliole  iiiiiii  syminciricully, — to  give  every  liuinaii 
faealty  its  appropriate  imtriiiieiit,  that  "  the  luaii  of 
God  may  be  perfect  and  entire,  wanting  nothing." 
If  you  seek  opportunity  for  benevolent  Avork,  I  am 
safe  in  saying  that  more  of  this  is  done  Ijy  the 
churches  of  the  land  than  by  all  other  organizations 
put  together ;  if  you  wish  to  better  your  condition  in 
a  worldly  point  of  view,  your  safest  course  is  to  study 
and  practise  those  principles  of  Christian  prudence 
and  morality  which  it  is  the  office  of  the  Church  to 
teach.  I  admit  that  the  Church  has  its  faults ;  that 
the  principles  on  which  it  is  founded  are  often  but 
imperfectly  apprehended  by  those  who  administer  its 
affairs;  that  there  is  no  little  human  nature  within 
as  well  as  without  its  communion  :  yet  so  long  as  the 
New  Testament  is  its  charter,  so  long  as  faith  in  tluj 
man  of  Nazareth  and  loyalty  to  him  is  its  foundation, 
it  must  be  a  mighty  power  for  good  in  the  world. 
And  I  am  sure  that,  if  you  have  not  already  done  so, 
you  cannot  find  any  thing  better  to  do  than  to  con- 
nect yourself  with  some  Christian  congregation,  and 
take  part  in  its  work. 

You  may  think  that  I  am  talking  professionally 
now,  but  I  am  not.  I  go  right  back  in  my  thought 
to  the  day  when  I  Avas  a  mechanic's  ap[)rentice, 
alone  and  almost  friendless  in  a  lariT:e  town;  and  I 
speak  solely  from  my  memory  of  the  help,  the  solace, 


144       Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

the  stimulus,  that  a  Christian  church  then  gave  me. 
I  never  think  of  that  church,  of  the  dear  friendships 
to  which  it  introduced  me,  of  the  quickening  that 
it  gave  me  mentally  as  well  as  spiritually,  of  the 
better  purposes  of  living  into  which  it  led  me, 
without  the  deepest  thankfulness.  It  furnished  just 
the  kind  of  influence  that  I  needed,  at  a  critical 
time  in  my  life  ;  and  1  owe  to  its  sacred  associations 
more  than  I  shall  ever  be  able  to  tell. 


VII. 

STRONG   DRINK. 

The  evils  that  result  from  the  drinking  of  intoxi 
eating  liquors  are  not  hidden  from  working-men. 
The  statement  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  pau- 
perism and  crime  of  the  land  is  directly  traceable 
to  strong  drink,  is  one  that  their  observation  will 
verify.  Rum  builds  and  fills  our  prisons  and  our 
almshouses ;  rum  greatly  increases  the  burden  of  our 
taxation. 

The  secretary  of  the  Massachusetts  Board  of  State 
Charities  lately  reported  that  "  from  three-fourths  tc 
four-fifths  of  the  crime  for  which  persons  are  in 
mates  of  the  House  of  Correction  and  the  prison 
may  be  traced  to  intemperance.  In  the  almshouse 
perhaps  four-fifths  of  the  inmates  are  brought  tlicrc 
by  intemperance.     Some  persons  have  estimated  the 


146      Working  People  and  their  Employ crt. 

proportion  as  larger  than  that.  Between  five  and 
six  hundred  persons  are  supported  by  the  State 
in  the  insane  asylum ;  and  a  large  proportion  of 
the  cases  of  insanity  may  be  traced  to  intemper- 
ance." 

The  testimony  of  the  chaplain  of  the  Charlestowi; 
prison  is  still  stronger:  "Since  I  have  been  there, 
I  have  conversed  with  over  fourteen  hundred  differ- 
ent men ;  and  I  have  spoken  with  them  particularly 
with  regard  to  the  matter  of  intoxicating  drinks ; 
and,  out  of  that  number,  fifteen-sixteenths  have 
stated  that  liquor  had  something  to  do  with  their 
coming  there." 

Judge  Sanger  of  Boston,  a  prosecuting  attorney 
of  Massachusetts,  gives  it  as  his  opinion,  that  "a  large 
portion  of  the  criminal  costs  of  the  Commonwealth 
are  from  this  cause.  There  are  very  few  cases  into 
which  the  use  of  intoxicating  liquors  does  not  more 
or  less  enter." 

Thes:^  witnesses  being  true,  the  testimony  which 
ihey  utter  deserves  our  careful  attention.  For  those 
who  are  not  themselves  addicted  to  the  use  of  strong 
drink  must  suffer  greatly  in  their  pecuniary  interests, 
and  may  suffer  in  their  families,  from  the  evils  that 
intemperance  brings  into  society.  If  any  thing  can 
be  done  to  check  its  ravages,  working-men  are  inter 
o-st^d  in  ha^  ing  it  done  without  delay. 


Strong  Drink.  147 

The  first  thing  to  do  is  to  reform  the  drinking  cus 
toms  of  society.  We  cannot  stop  the  sale  of  liquor 
by  law  till  we  get  the  great  majority  of  the  people 
to  believe  that  it  injures  them  to  drink  liquor.  Tf 
we  could  induce  all  the  people  who  drink  to  stop 
drinking,  the  people  who  sell  would  be  obliged  to 
stop  selling.  And  if,  by  showing  them  its  evil 
effects,  we  can  persuade  a  large  number  of  those 
who  use  strong  drink  to  give  it  up,  we  can  prepare 
a  moral  basis  broad  and  firm  enough  for  a  stringent 
law. 

To  begin  with,  then,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  the 
drinking  of  intoxicating  liquors  does  no  healthy 
person  any  good.  Nearly  all  the  doctors  admit  that 
they  are  valuable  medicines  in  some  diseases,  and 
that  they  may  be  used  with  advantage  in  certain 
feeble  and  morbid  states  of  the  system ;  but  the  best 
authorities  are  pretty  clear  in  their  affirmation  that, 
if  a  man  is  well,  strong  drink  will  not  make  him  any 
better. 

One  of  the  effects  of  alcohol  upon  the  system  is 
to  retard  the  waste  of  tissue.  Those  of  you  who 
have  studied  physiology  a  little,  know  that  two  pro- 
cesses are  constantly  going  on  in  the  healthy  human 
body.  The  food  we  eat  and  the  air  we  breathe  are 
all  the  while  adding  to  its  substance  ;  and  other  agen- 
cies are  all  the  while  eliminating  the  portions  that 


148       Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

are  worn  out.  One  set  of  forces  is  at  work  building 
up  the  tissues,  and  another  set  is  at  work  pulling 
them  down  and  carrying  them  off.  It  is  necessary  to 
health  that  both  of  these  processes  should  go  on  at 
the  same  time :  if  one  goes  on  without  the  other^ 
disorder  and  disease  are  the  result.  Sometimes  the 
body  is  in  such  a  condition  that  the  digestive  and 
assimilative  forces  do  not  work  well,  and  the  others 
keep  on  wasting  the  tissues  and  diminishing  the 
strength.  The  destroyers  are  at  work,  but  the 
builders  have  stopped  working.  In  such  cases  alco- 
holic liquors  are  sometimes  useful  because  they  pre- 
vent the  waste  of  tissues;  they  simply  make  the 
destroyers  stop  working  till  the  builders  are  ready  to 
go  on. 

In  cases  of  great  weakness,  the  use  of  these  liquors 
as  medicines  is  undoubtedly  beneficial.  Dr.  Bellows 
of  Boston,  testifying  before  a  committee  of  the 
Legislature,  uses  these  words:  "Keeping  in  mind 
that  the  synonyme  of  stimulant  is  goad,  I  have 
no  difficulty  in  coming  to  a  conclusion  when  it  is 
needful  as  a  medicine.  I  have  stood  by  the  bedside 
of  a  sinking  patient  when  the  pulse  was  sinking  rap- 
idly, and  when  I  have  feared  that  nature  would  not 
be  able  to  rally,  and  I  have  given  a  stimulant,  — 
a  goad  to  whip  up  poor  sinking  nature ;  and  in  a 
few  moments  the  pulse  would  rise,  but  would  fall 


Strong  Drink.  149 


again  very  suoii.  It  might  be  carefully  renewed  till 
nature  was  able  to  receive  some  nourishment.  I 
believe  that  patients  have  been  saved  by  the  use  of 
stimulants  in  such  a  manner." 

For  purposes  of  this  nature  alcoholic  liquors  may, 
undoubtedly,  be  wisely  used ;  and  it  is  only  in  such 
cases  that  they  are  beneficial.  The  physician  is  the 
only  person  who  can  properly  determine  when  they 
ought  to  be  resorted  to. 

Concerning  the  habitual  use  of  them  as  beverages 
by  persons  in  health,  I  do  not  ask  you  to  take  my 
opinions,  but  quote  for  you  the  highest  medical  au- 
thority. Dr.  Carpenter  of  England,  who  is  perhaps 
the  most  distinguished  physiologist  in  the  world, 
makes  this  statement :  "The  physiological  objection 
to  the  habitual  use  of  even  small  quantities  of  alco- 
holic drinks  rests  upon  the  following  grounds  :  They 
are  universally  admitted  to  possess  a  poisonous  char- 
acter ;  they  tend  to  produce  a  morbid  condition  of 
the  body  at  large;  the  capacity  for  enduring  the 
extremes  of  heat  and  cold,  or  mental  and  bodily  labor, 
is  diminished  rather  than  increased  by  their  habitual 
employment.  .  .  .  Alcoholic  liquids  cannot  supply  any 
thing  that  is  essential  to  the  due  nutrition  of  the 
system.  The  action  of  alcohol  upon  the  living  body 
is  essentially  that  of  stimulus,  increasing  for  a  time 
the  vital  activity  of  tlie  >  ody,  but  being  followed  by 


150      Working  People  and  their  Employ e7^s, 

a  corresponding  depression  of  power,  which  is  the 
more  prolonged  and  severe  as  the  previous  excite- 
ment has  been  greater." 

Sii  Henry  Thompson,  one  of  the  most  eminent 
medical  practitioners  of  England,  who  is  best  known 
in  this  country  as  Prof  Tyndall's  friend,  and  the 
author  of  the  "  Prayer  Gauge,"  testifies  as  follows : 
"  I  have  long  had  the  conviction  that  there  is  no 
greater  cause  of  evil,  moral  and  physical,  in  this 
country,  than  the  use  of  alcoholic  beverages.  I  do 
not  mean  by  this  that  extreme  indulgence  which 
produces  drunkenness.  The  habitual  use  of  fer- 
mented liquors,  to  an  extent  far  short  of  what  is 
necessary  to  produce  that  condition,  and  such  as  is 
quite  common  in  all  ranks  of  society,  injures  the 
body,  and  diminishes  the  medical  power,  to  an 
extent  which  I  think  few  people  are  aware  of  Such, 
at  all  events,  is  the  result  of  observation  during  more 
than  twenty  years  of  professional  life,  devoted  to 
hospital  practice,  and  to  private  practice  in  every 
rank  above  it.  Thus  I  have  no  hesitation  in  attrib- 
uting a  very  large  proportion  of  some  of  the  most 
painful  and  dangerous  maladies  which  come  under 
my  notice,  as  well  as  those  which  every  medical  man 
has  to  treat,  to  the  ordinary  and  daily  use  of  fer- 
mented drink^  taken  in  the  quantity  loliieli  is  conven- 
tionally deemed  moderate.      Whatever  may  ])e   said 


Sirono-  Drhik,  151 


<s 


in  regard  to  its  evil  influence  (jn  tlie  mental  and 
moral  faculties,  as  to  the  fact  above  stated  I  feel  lliat 
I  have  a  riglit  to  speak  with  authority  ;  and  T  do  so 
solely  because  it  appears  to  me  a  duty,  especially  at 
this  moment,  not  to  be  silent  on  a  matter  of  such 
extreme  importance.  .  .  .  My  main  object  is  to  ex- 
press my  opinion,  as  a  professional  man,  in  relation 
to  the  habitual  employment  of  fermented  liquor  as  a 
beverage.  But  if  I  ventured  one  step  further,  it 
would  be  to  express  a  belief  that  there  is  no  single 
habit  in  this  country  which  so  much  tends  to  deteri- 
orate the  qualities  of  the  race,  and  so  much  disquali- 
fies it  for  endurance  in  that  competition  which,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  must  exist,  and  in  which  struggle 
the  prize  of  superiority  must  fall  to  the  best  and  the 
strongest." 

Sir  Henry  Thompson  is  not  a  finatic :  lie  looks  at 
this  question  from  a  scientific  rather  than  a  senti- 
mental point  of  view ;  and  his  words  will  have 
weight  with  you  for  this  reason.  You  will  notice 
that  his  judgment  includes  fermented  liquors.  The 
theory  of  Gov.  Andrew,  that  the  habitual  use  of 
wine  and  beer  is  not  only  harmless  but  beneficial,  is 
expressly  contradicted  by  this  high  authority. 

In  England,  as  is  well  known,  total  abstinence  is 
not  practised  among  the  higher  classes  of  society  so 
generally  as  it  is  in  this  country.      Wine  is  commonly 


152       Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

found  at  the  ministers'  meetings :  Mr.  Spurgeon  uses 
it  freely,  and  justifies  this  use  of  it.  There  has  been, 
till  recently,  no  public  sentiment  averse  to  moderate 
drinking.  But  of  late  our  English  cousins,  who 
are  slow  in  changing  their  views  of  such  subjects, 
have  beei.  investigating  the  physiological  effects  of 
nlcoholic  liquors  much  more  thoroughly  than  we 
have  ever  done.  During  the  last  few  years,  "  The 
British  Medical  Journal"  has  invited  contributions 
from  those  best  qaalified  to  speak  upon  the  sul)ject; 
and  Dr.  Markham,  the  distinguished  editor  of  this 
journal,  thus  sums  up  the  results  of  the  discussion 
which  has  appeared  upon  its  pages :  — 

*'  We  have  no  wish  hastily  to  speak  on  this  important  matter;  but 
we  are  bound  in  conscience  boldly  to  declare  the  logical  and  inevitable 
conclusions,  as  they  seem  to  us,  to  which  a  scientific  view  of  the  sub- 
ject forces  us. 

"1.  That  alcohol  is  not  food,  and  that,  being  simply  a  stimulant  of 
the  nervous  system,  its  use  is  hurtful  to  the  body  of  a  healthy  man. 

"  2.  That  if  its  imbibition  be  of  service,  it  Is  only  so  to  man  in  aji 
abnormal  condition,  and  that  our  duty  as  men  of  medicine  is  to 
endeavor  to  define  what  those  particular  abnormal  states  are  in  whicl 
alcohol  is  serviceable. 

"  3.  That  ordinary  social  indulgence  in  alcoholic  drinks  for 
society's  sake  is,  medically  speaking,  a  very  unphysiological  and 
prejudicial  proceeding. ' ' 

American  authorities  of  equal  eminence  might  be 
quoted  to  the  same  effect.     A  statement  of  Dr.  Wil- 


Strong  Drink.  153 


lard  Parker,  is  every  whit  as  strong  as  that  of  Sir 
Henry  Thompson. 

Sueh  are  some  of  the  opinions  of  seientific  men 
upon  this  subject.  The  doctors  do  not  agree  about 
it,  of  course  :  there  are  very  few  subjects  on  which 
they  do  agree;  but  the  men  to  whom  I  have  referred 
you  stand  very  high  in  their  profession,  and  their 
testimony  fully  sustains  the  statement  with  which  we 
started,  that  the  use  of  strong  drink  does  no  healthy 
person  any  good.  As  scientific  men,  their  opinions 
are  based  upon  facts  which  they  have  observed  and 
collated ;  and  I  now  desire  to  call  your  attention  to 
some  of  these  facts,  that  you  may  judge  for  your- 
selves whether  the  opinions  that  I  have  quoted  have 
a  sufficient  foundation. 

It  is  maintained  by  drinkers,  that  their  strength 
and  their  endurance  are  increased  by  the  moderate 
use  of  alcoholic  beverages.  Facts  prove,  however, 
that  the  strength  and  endurance  of  human  beings  are 
greatly  diminished  by  the  use  of  such  beverages. 

In  forming  our  judgment  on  this  point,  it  is  ne- 
cessary, of  course,  to  make  a  wide  induction  of  facts. 
You  can  quote  to  me  instances  of  individual  drinkers 
who  have  lived  to  a  great  age,  and  who  have  per- 
formed much  labor,  and  endured  many  hardships , 
but  concerning  all  such  cases  I  should  ask  you  two 
questions:    First,    are   you    sure    that    tliey   are    not 


1 54       Working  People  and  their  Employers. 


exceptions  to  a  general  rule?  Second,  how  do  you 
know  they  would  not  have  lived  longer,  done  more 
work,  and  endured  more  hardships,  if  they  had 
abstained  from  strong  drink  ?  A  single  fact  is  not 
enough  to  establish  a  scientific  law.  You  must  have 
a  wide  knowledge  of  facts  bearing  upon  the  case, 
and  your  verdict  must  be  in  accordance  with  the 
weight  of  evidence.  Attempts  have  been  made  to 
reach  certainty  in  this  matter,  by  a  careful  collation 
of  facts. 

A  gentleman  in  Uxbridge,  Eng.,  kept  account  for 
a  whole  year  of  the  work  done  by  two  gangs  of 
brickmakers,  one  of  which  was  composed  of  beer- 
drinkers,  the  other  of  total  abstainers.  Here  is  the 
result:  ''Out  of  upwards  of  23,000,000  of  bricks 
made  in  1841  by  the  largest  maker  in  the  neighbor- 
hood, the  average  per  man  made  by  the  beer-drinkers 
was  760,269  ;  while  the  average  for  the  teetotallers 
was  795,400,  which  is  35,131  in  favor  of  the  latter. 
The  highest  number  made  by  a  beer-drinker  was 
880,000 ;  the  highest  number  made  by  a  teetotaller 
was  890,000,  leaving  ten  thousand  in  favor  of  the 
teetotaller.  The  lowest  number  made  by  a  beer- 
drinker  was  659,000;  the  lowest  number  made  by 
a  teetotaller  was  746,000,  leaving  87,000  in  favor  of 
the  teetotaller." 

F]'om  another  group  of  workers  in  a  very  different 


Strong  Drink,  155 


field,  we  get  the  same  testimony.  The  kite  Richard 
Cobden,  speaking  on  one  occasion  of  the  severe 
labors  of  the  parliament  that  debated  the  corn-laws, 
mentions  that,  out  of  658  members,  two  gentlemen, 
Col.  Thompson  and  Mr.  Brotherton,  endured  the  long 
sittings  and  wearisome  debates  of  that  body  with 
greater  ease  than  any  other  members,  and  they  were 
both  total  abstainers. 

I  have  no  statistics  to  present  with  reference  to 
the  soldiers  in  the  late  war ;  but  considerable  observa- 
tion  of  their  habits,  and  inquiry  among  them,  satisfied 
me  that  the  fatigues  of  the  hard  marches  were  best 
borne  by  men  who  never  tasted  intoxicating  liquors. 
A  single  witness  will  not  prove  the  case,  as  I  have 
admitted  ;  but  a  witness  whose  testimony  contradicts 
his  inclinations  has  some  special  claims  upon  our 
credit.  One  of  the  best  and  bravest  of  the  young 
officers  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac,  who  was  not 
during  the  war,  and  is  not  now,  a  total  abstainer,  was 
justifying,  in  a  conversation  with  me,  his  use  of 
strong  drink.  He  drank  it,  he  said,  because  he  liked 
it;  and  that  was  reason  enough.  "But  did  you  usi* 
it  in  the  army?"  I  asked  '  I  did,"  he  answered, 
"  except  on  the  heavy  marches.  Then  I  never  touched 
a  drop  of  whiskey.  I  found  that  it  would  not  do. 
The  men  who  stimulated  always  played  out  sooner 
than  the  men  who  abstained  " 


156      Working  People  and  thtir  Employers, 

In  another  quarter  we  find  an  accumulation  of 
weighty  evidence.  That  is  the  testimony  of  the 
athletes,  the  oarsmen,  the  pugilists,  the  ball-players, 
the  pedestrians,  all  the  men  who  have  made  it  the 
study  and  the  business  of  their  lives  to  secure  the 
most  perfect  muscular  development,  from  the  days  of 
the  Olympic  races  down  to  the  present  time.  Their 
testimony  is  very  nearly  uniform,  that  the  highest 
degree  of  physical  strength  is  impossible  to  one 
who  drinks  even  moderately.  The  trainers  of  these 
athletes  have  always  insisted  that  their  men  shall 
abstain  from  even  the  mildest  forms  of  alcoholic 
liquors. 

The  literature  of  the  ancients  is  full  of  references 
to  the  abstemious  practices  of  the  athletes.  Thus 
Epictetus  says,  "  Do  you  wish  to  gain  the  prize  at 
the  Olympic  games?  Consider  the  requisite  prepara- 
tions and  the  consequence.  You  must  observe  a 
strict  regimen;  .  .  .  you  must  take  no  loine  as  usual '^ 
you  must  put  yourself  under  a  pugilist  as  under 
a  physician,  and  afterward  enter  the  lists."  Th'is 
I  [orace,  as  translated  by  Francis,  bears  witness  in  his 
(issay  on  "  The  Art  of  Poetry  :  "  — 

* '  A  youth  who  hopes  tlie  Olympic  prize  to  gain 
All  arts  must  try,  and  every  toil  sustain; 
The  extremes  of  heat  and  cold  must  often  prove, 
And  shun  the  weakening  iovs  of  wine  and  Iov*»  ** 


Strong  Drink.  157 


A  few  of  the  trainers  liave  lately  attempted  to 
iulroduee  beer  into  the  regimen  of  the  oarsmen;  but 
if  I  am  rightly  informed,  the  innovation  has  not  been 
successful.  The  experience  of  so  many  generations 
in  such  a  matter  is  not  likely  to  lead  us  astray  ;  and 
it  all  helps  to  confirm  the  truth  of  the  confession  of 
Tom  Sayers:  "I'm  no  teetotaller;  but  when  I've  any 
business  to  do,  there's  nothing  like  water  and  tlie 
dumb-bells." 

One  of  the  delusions  most  widely  prevalent  with 
regard  to  alcoholic  liquors  is  that  they  help  to  keep 
the  body  warm.  Liebig  classes  them  among  "  respir- 
atory foods,"  and  maintains  that  they  act,  like  fat  and 
similar  substances,  as  fuel  to  increase  the  heat  of  the 
body.  Every  habitual  drinker  will  tell  you  that  they 
keep  him  warm  on  a  cold  day  ;  and  if  you  ask  him 
how  he  knows,  he  will  tell  you  that  he  knows  by  his 
feelings.  So  far  as  Liebig  is  concerned,  his  theory  is 
not  now  accepted  by  the  highest  authorities.  Dr. 
James  C.  White  and  Dr.  Edward  H.  Clarke  both 
declared  before  the  Massachusetts  Legislative  Com- 
mittee, that  it  was  ''undemonstrated."  And  so  flir 
as  the  drinker  is  concerned,  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that 
the  feelings  are  not  always  trustworthy  guides.  You 
are  not  always  warmest  when  you  feel  warmest.  The 
only  safe  guide  is  the  thermometer.  And  if  any  man 
vill  place  the  bulb  of  a  thermometer  in  the  current 


158      Working  People  and  their  E^nployers 

of  his  breath  or  under  his  tongue,  and  note  the  tem- 
perature of  his  breath  and  of  his  blood  before  drink- 
ing a  glass  of  brandy,  and  again  a  short  time  after 
drinking  it,  he  will  find  that  the  temperature  of 
In's  body  is  perceptibly  lowered  by  the  stimulant. 
Travellers  in  the  Arctic  regions  report  that  the  use 
of  strong  drink  greatly  lessens  a  man's  power  to 
endure  hunger  and  cold  and  fatigue.  Mr.  Par  ton,  in 
his  essay  entitled,  "  Will  the  Coming  Man  Drink 
Wine  ?  "  —  an  essay  which  has  been  of  service  to  me 
in  the  preparation  of  this  chapter,  —  relates  the  follow- 
ing on  the  authority  of  a  traveller:  "When  Russian 
troops  are  about  to  start  on  a  march  in  a  very  cold 
region,  no  grog  is  allowed  to  be  served  to  them ;  and 
when  the  men  are  drawn  up  ready  to  move,  the 
corporals  smell  the  breath  of  every  man,  and  send 
back  to  quarters  all  who  have  been  drinking.  The 
reason  is  that  men  who  start  under  the  influence 
of  liquor  are  the  first  to  succumb  to  the  cold,  and 
the  likeliest  to  be  frost-bitten.  It  is  the  uniform  ex- 
perience of  the  hunters  and  trappers  of  the  northern 
provinces  of  North  America  and  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, that  alcohol  diminishes  their  power  to  resist 
cold." 

Upon  such  facts  as  I  have  recited,  scientific  men 
rest  their  theory  that  strong  drink  is  man's  foe.  The 
brick-maker,  the  law-maker,   the  soldier,    the  prize- 


Strong  Drink.  159 


fighter,  the  pedestrian,  tlie  oarsman,  tlie  Ixill-phayer, 
the  trapper,  the  arctic  explorer,  all  unite  in  the  testi- 
mony, that  the  man  who  wants  to  do  his  best  must 
lei  alcoholic  ]i(piors  entirely  alone.  Taken  in  ever  so 
moderate  quantities,  tliey  impair  the  strength  of  the 
body,  and  diminish  its  power  of  endurance. 

Not  only  are  they  not  friends  to  the  health  of 
man  :  they  are  also  powerful  allies  of  the  diseases 
that  prey  upon  him.  When  the  dark  shadow  of 
pestilence  falls  upon  any  community,  by  far  the 
largest  proportion  of  its  victims  is  found  among 
those  who  make  habitual  use  of  stimulating  bev- 
erages. 

Dr.  Cartwright,  one  of  the  best  physicians  of  New 
Orleans,  wrote  thus  to  "The  Boston  Medical  Journal" 
in  1853  :  "  The  yellow  fever  came  down  like  a  storm 
upon  this  devoted  city,  with  1,127  dramshops  in  one 
out  of  four  divisions  of  the  city.  It  is  not  the 
citizens  proper,  but  the  foreigners,  with  their  mis- 
taken notions  about  the  climate  and  the  country, 
who  are  the  chief  supports  of  these  haunts  of  intem- 
perance. About  five  thousand  of  them  died  before 
the  epidemic  touched  a  single  citizen  or  sober  man, 
so  far  as  I  can  get  at  the  facts." 

Dr.  Bronson  of  Albany,  who  spent  some  time  in 
Montreal  during  the  prevalence  of  the  cholera  in 
1852,  wrote  as  follows:   "Cholera  has  stood  up  here, 


f6o       Wor/chio^  Pe'ople  and  their  Employers, 

as  it  has  everywhere,  the  advocate  of  temperance. 
It  has  pleaded  most  eloquently,  and  with  tremendous 
eiTect.  The  disease  has  searched  the  haunts  of  the 
drunkard,  and  has  seldom  left  it  without  bearing 
away  its  victims.  Even  moderate  drinkers  have 
been  but  a  little  better  off."  Out  of  twelve  hundred 
persons  attacked  by  the  cholera  in  Montreal  during 
the  summer  of  1852,  less  than  one  hundred  re- 
covered ;  and  one  of  the  journals  of  the  city  stated 
that  "  almost  all  the  victims  were  at  least  moderate 
drinkers." 

The  cholera  and  yellow  fever  proclaim  with  only 
a  little  louder  voices  the  same  truth  that  a  hundred 
other  sicknesses  are  telling  us  every  day,  —  that 
strong  drink  is  the  forerunner,  the  armor-bearer,  and 
the  ally  of  all  disease.  More  than  once  I  have  heard 
the  physician  tell  his  patient,  on  his  recovery  from  a 
severe  attack  of  pneumonia  or  typhoid  fever,  "  If 
you  had  been  a  drinking  man,  you  would  never  have 
come  out  of  this."  Even  the  moderate  use  of  alco- 
holic  beverages  so  impairs  the  vital  energy  of  the 
system  that  it  does  not  quickly  rally  from  the  shock 
of  disease. 

In  the  mortuary  records  we  find  a  comparatively 
small  number  of  deaths  attributed  to  intemperance; 
bnt  everybody  knows  that  it  is  the  efficient  cause 
of  thousands  of  deaths  to  wliich,  tq  spare  the  fechnga 


Stroiio^  Drink,  i6i 


of  sorrowing  friends,  the  pliysicians  assign  oilier 
causes.  Typhus  fever  and  paralysis  and  peritonitis 
and  heart  disease,  and  numberless  other  ailments,  are 
made  the  scapegoats  of  the  mischief  done  by  strong 
drink. 

Thus  we  complete  the  circuit  of  our  evidence. 
Life  fr(^m  every  station  and  every  calling,  disease 
by  every  destroyer  in  its  ghostly  army,  and  death 
itself  from  every  graveyard  in  the  land,  unite  in  the 
testimony  that  alcoholic  liquors  are  the  deadly  foes 
of  the  human  race,  despoiling  men  of  their  strength, 
and  joining  hands  with  the  dark  slayer  to  do  his 
terrible  work. 

Their  effects  upon  the  mental  and  moral  nature  are 
not  less  injurious.  It  is  sometimes  thought  that  the 
alertness  and  vigor  of  the  mind  are  increased  by  the 
use  of  these  stimulants ;  but  it  is  not  the  fact.  Dr. 
Brinton,  a  famous  English  physician,  much  quoted 
by  Gov.  Andrew  in  his  speech  against  prohibition, 
says  in  his  work  on  dietetics,  "Mental  acuteness,  accu- 
racy of  perception,  and  delicacy  of  the  senses,  are  all 
so  far  opposed  by  alcohol  that  the  maxim  mi  efforts 
of  each  are  incompatible  with  the  ingestion  of  any 
moderate  quantity  of  fermented  liquid.  A  single 
glass  will  often  serve  to  take  the  edge  off  both  mind 
and  body,  and  to  reduce  their  capacity  to  something 
less  than  the  perfection  of  work."     This  follows,  as 


102       Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

an  inevitable  inference,  from  what  has  already  been 
proven.  For  though  the  mind  and  the  body  are 
not  identical,  yet  they  are  so  closely  related  that 
whatever  affects  the  one  affects  the  other.  The  mind 
requires  for  its  best  working  the  best  health  of  the 
body.  But  we  have  seen  that  even  the  moderate 
use  of  intoxicating  liquors  impairs  the  best  health 
of  the  body,  and  therefore  it  must  affect  the  mind 
injuriously. 

The  moral  nature  is  part  of  the  mind,  and  must 
therefore  share  in  the  injury.  The  effect  of  strong 
drink  seems  to  be  almost  uniformly  to  stimulate  the 
lower  appetites  and  propensities,  to  aggravate  the 
animalism  of  the  nature,  and  to  paralyze  the  nobler 
sentiments.  It  is  well  known  that  sensuality  of  the 
foulest  type  is  nourished  by  ardent  spirits.  Go  into 
any  bar-room  where  a  company  of  men  are  drinking 
together,  and  you  will  not  stay  long  without  hearing 
the  vile  jest  or  the  indecent  allusion.  Lips  that  are 
clean  in  soberness  are  defiled  when  the  intoxicating 
bowl  touches  them.  The  angel  of  purity  flies  from 
the  place  where  drunken  mirth  holds  wassail.  And 
not  only  vile  thoughts  and  vile  words,  but  viler 
deeds,  are  the  offspring  of  this  demon.  Intemperance 
is  always  the  prime  minister  of  lust.  The  saloon  of 
the  rumseller  is  next  door  to  the  house  that  is  "  the 
way  of  hell,  going  down  to  the  chambers  of  death." 


Strong  Drink.  163 

To  every  variety  of  crime,  strong  drink  is  the 
instigator.  To  the  crime  of  arson,  it  very  often 
prompts  men.  There  is  abundant  evidence  to  show 
that  the  insane  passion  for  burning  — pyromama^  a^ 
it  is  called  —  is  often  excited  by  it.  Men  who  are 
perfectly  free  from  such  inclinations  when  sober  are 
seized,  when  intoxicated,  with  an  overpowering  de- 
sire to  burn  something,  A  large  proportion  of  our 
incendiary  fires  originate  in  this  way.  Others  are 
instigated  by  strong  drink  to  theft.  Kleptomania, 
the  insane  desire  to  steal,  is  often  awakened  by 
alcohol.  ''I  have  known,"  says  Prof  Monroe,  "la- 
dies of  good  position  in  society,  who  after  a  dinner 
or  supper  party,  and  after  having  taken  sundry 
glasses  of  wine,  could  not  resist  the  temptation  of 
taking  home  any  little  article  not  their  own ;  and 
who,  in  their  sober  moments,  have  returned  them  as 
if  taken  by  mistake." 

But  the  most  common  effect  of  alcohol  is  to 
prompt  those  who  have  taken  it  to  deeds  of  vio- 
lence. Very  many,  perhaps  the  majority  of  those 
who  are  addicted  to  the  excessive  use  of  o.rdent 
spirits,  are  excited  by  them  to  injure  human  beings, 
or  to  destroy  human  life.  Men  who,  when  sober,  are 
not  disposed  to  harm  anybody,  are  roused  by  strong 
drink  to  a  homicidal  fury.  The  first  person  that 
crosses  their  path  may  be  the  victim  of  their  r-ige, 


1 64      Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

though  it  is  more  Hkely  to  be  wreaked  upon  the 
helpless  wife  and  babes  at  home.  Nine-tenths,  per- 
haps a  larger  proportion,  of  the  assaults  aud  the 
liomicides  that  take  place  in  our  land,  are  the  effect 
of  intoxicating  liquor.  I  do  not  mean  to  suy  simply 
that  these  offenders  committed  these  offences  ivMle 
they  were  drunk :  I  mean  that  they  committed  these 
offences  simply  and  solely  hecause  they  were  drunk. 
The  laconic  and  often-repeated  verdict  of  the  re- 
porter is,  in  most  of  these  cases,  literally  true : 
"Rum  did  it."  Of  course  many  crimes  are  com- 
mitted with  malice  "aforethought,"  as  the  legal 
phrase  is;  but  even  in  these  cases  strong  drink  is 
often  made  accessory  before  the  fact.  For  the  doing 
of  a  deed  of  violence,  like  that  of  Wilkes  Booth,  a 
glass  of  fiery  spirit  is  found  to  be  a  good  prepara- 
tion. 

Such,  working-men,  are  some  of  the  facts  concern- 
ing the  effects  of  strong  drink  upon  the  body  and 
the  mind  of  the  man  that  uses  it.  The  facts  are  not 
new,  but  I  think  that  they  are  true.  At  any  rate, 
I  have  not  meant  to  overstate  any  thing.  And  it 
seems  to  me  that  I  have  given  you  some  strong  rea- 
sons for  letting  the  vile  stuff  entirely  alone.  It  will 
do  you  no  good  unless  you  are  sick;  and  if  you 
are,  you  had  better  let  the  doctor  be  the  judge 
whether  you  need  it  or  not.     It  costs  some  of  you 


Strong  Drink.  165 


a  good  deal  in  the  course  of  the  year ;  times  would 
be  easier  with  you  right  away,  if  you  would  abstain 
from  the  use  of  it.  It  reduces  the  strength  of  your 
bodies,  it  weakens  your  power  of  endurance,  it  pre 
disposes  you  to  disease,  it  dulls  your  wits,  and  blunts 
your  moral  sense ;  it  awakens  and  reinforces  all  that 
is  coarsest  and  most  devilish  in  your  natures,  and 
beats  down  every  sentiment  of  purity  and  honor.  Of 
all  the  enemies  of  the  working-men,  the  worst  is 
strong  drink.  If  that  were  conquered  and  banished, 
the  rest  of  Iheir  wrongs  could  be  easily  righted 


VIII 

THE   DUTIES    OF   EMPLOYERS. 

'*  Masters,  give  unto  your  servants  that  which  is  just 
and  equal."  So  wrote  a  good  man  of  the  olden 
time  to  certain  slaveholders  whom  he  knew.  If  this 
was  good  counsel  for  the  owners  of  slaves,  it  is  cer- 
tainly quite  as  good  for  the  employers  of  free  work- 
ing-men. Freemen  have  at  least  as  much  right  as 
bondmen  to  justice  and  equity.  The  abolition  of 
slavery  does  not  cancel  the  moral  obligation  of  the 
man  that  organizes  and  directs  labor,  to  deal  fairly 
and  mercifully  with  those  in  his  employ. 

Of  this  moral  obligation,  law  and  political  economy 
take  very  little  notice.  Our  laws  are  sc»metimes 
said  to  be  founded  on  justice,  but  it  is  justice  of  a 
negative  sort.  They  undertake  to  protect  individ- 
uals in  their  rights ;   to  defend  them,  tliat   is,  against 


The  Ditties  of  Employers.  167 


wrongs;  to  2)revcnt  injustice,  not  to  secure  justice 
in  any  affirmative  way :  that  'is  beyond  tlie  scope 
of  human  government.  ''  The  proper  business  of 
legislation,"  says  Dr.  Hopkins,  ''is  to  secure  to  all 
their  rights,  and  not  to  oblige  any  to  (hj  right.  If 
there  arc  courts  of  equity,  their  object  is  not  to  com- 
pel the  doing  of  right,  but  to  prevent  the  doing  of 
wrong  through  the  imperfections  and  under  the  forms 
of  law.  That  legislation  should  seek  to  pass  from  the 
guardianship  of  right  to  an  attempt  to  compel  the 
doing  of  right,  is  natural ;  but  this  has  seldom  been 
done  without  confusion  and  mischief" 

In  the  matter  of  wages,  the  law  leaves  me  free  to 
dispose  of  my  services  for  such  a  reward  as  suits  me, 
and  only  stands  by  to  guarantee  the  fulfilment  of  the 
contract  thus  freely  made.  My  employer,  taking 
advantage  of  my  necessities,  may  agree  to  pay  me 
less  than  a  fair  price  for  my  work ;  but  the  law  will 
not  compel  him  to  pay  me  any  more  than  he  agrees 
to  pay  me.  / 

So  with  political  economy.  The  fundamental  prin- 
ciple in  all  its  speculations  is  self-interest,  not  benevo- 
lence nor  justice.  It  is  assumed  l)y  the  political 
economists,  that  men  will  always  do  what  is  for  their 
interest ;  the  idea  is  distinctly  repudiated,  that  they 
will,  as  a  rule,  govern  themselves  by  considerations 
of  charity  or  of  abstract  morality.     What  are  called 


1 68      Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

the  laws  of  political  economy  are  therefore  state- 
ments, not  of  what  nfen  ought  to  do,  but  of  what 
experience  shows  that  they  will  do.  They  are  nat- 
ural laws,  —  laws  of  a  nature  that  is  fallen  from  its 
normal  condition,  and  only  in  part  restored*;  laws  to 
be  studied,  then,  as  one  studies  the  law  of  gravitation 
or  the  law  of  chemical  affinity,  but  by  no  means 
always  to  be  obeyed.  The  facts  this  science  gives  us 
are  to  be  respected,  as  the  facts  that  medical  science 
gives  us  concerning  epidemics  are  to  be  respected; 
but  they  are  not  to  ha  acquiesced  in  as  representing 
the  best  conceivable  conditions  of  human  society. 

The  New  Testament  morality  gives  us  not  merely 
the  hard  facts  of  human  life,  but  the  principles  by 
which  life  in  this  world  is  to  be  regenerated,  and 
made  to  conform  to  the  divine  ideal.  Political  econ- 
omy tells  us  what  the  laws  of  exchange  are :  the 
Now  Testament  shows  what  the  relations  of  men 
ouofht  to  be.  The  one  talks  of  market  value  and 
normal  value,  of  the  tendency  of  profits,  and  of 
supply  and  demand  :  the  other  speaks  of  justice  and 
equity,  of  love  and  self-sacrifice.  And  the  gospel 
encourages  the  hope,  that,  as  tlie  principles  of  Christ's 
teachings  get  more  and  more  firmly  fixed  in  the 
lives  of  men,  these  maxims  of  a  higher  morality  will 
come  to  be  recognized  as  settmg  forth  the  only  true 
relations  between  man  and  man. 


The  Duties  of  Efnployn^^.  i6c 

It  is  to  these  principles,  then,  as  tliey  alTect  the 
relations  of  employer  and  laborer,  tliat  I  wish  to 
call  your  attention  now.  We  pray  tliat  Christ's  king- 
dom may  come:  oiiglit  we  not  to  know  what  it  witf 
bring  with  it  when  it  comes?  Ought  we  not  to  be 
preparing  the  way  for  its  coming  ? 

If  "that  which  is  just  and  equal"  is  to  be  the 
standard  by  which  dealings  between  employers  and 
workmen  are  to  be  measured,  then  it  is  plain  that 
the  employer  and  the  workman  are  to  deal  with  one 
another  not  as  classes,  but  as  individuals.  Justice 
and  equity,  in  the  New  Testament  sense,  are  not  col- 
lective or  impersonal  virtues :  they  are  strictly  per- 
sonal. ^The  class  of  employers  and  the  class  of 
laborers  cannot  adjust  their  relations  on  moral 
grounds,  because  it  is  not  possible  to  hold  a  class  of 
persons  to  moral  responsibility.  If  masters  are  to 
give  to  their  servants  that  which  is  just  and  equitable, 
then  masters  must  put  themselves  into  personal  rela- 
tions with  their  servants,  and  must  treat  them  not  as 
chattels,  not  as  counters  in  the  great  game  of  coni- 
merce,  not  as  stock  or  machinery,  not  as  classes,  but 
as  persons,  with  a  conscientious  regard  for  their 
physical  and  moral  welfare. 

>jThe  tendency  of  modern  industry  is  to  separate 
the  employer  from  the  workman  by  a  (constantly 
widening  interval.      Wlien  all  the  work  of  the  world 


lyo      Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

was  done  by  hand  or  with  rude  machinery,  in  small 
shops  or  factories,  master  and  man  were  brought  into 
close  relations.  The  mill -owner  or  the  master- 
mechanic  not  only  knew  the  men  in  his  employ,  but 
often  wrought  by  their  side.  ^^  Moreover,  there  was 
no  such  disparity  of  social  conditions  as  we  now  see 
between  employers  and  laborers.  The  princely  for- 
tunes, now  so  common,  were  then  as  rare;  the  capi- 
talist was  not,  as  a  rule,  raised  very  high  above  the 
social  rank  of  the  laborer.  The  effect  of  the  improve- 
ment of  machinery,  and  of  the  combination  and 
subdivision  of  labor,  has  been  twofold.  On  the  one 
hand,  vast  numbers  of  laborers  are  now  brought 
together  by  a  single  man,  who  deals  with  them 
largely  through  hired  superintendents  or  overseers, 
and  scarcely  ever  knows  even  the  names  of  the  people 
on  his  pay-roll.  "  On  the  other  hand,  under  this  large 
system  of  manufactures,  it  is  possible  for  men  of 
organizing  ability  and  energy  to  amass  enormous 
wealth ;  so  that  they  are  separated  socially,  from  the 
people  they  employ,  by  a  distance  almost  as  great 
as  that  which  divides  an  English  duke  from  the 
peasantry  on  his  estates.  Many  of  them,  too,  have 
their  homes  in  cities  far  distant  from  their  mills  or 
their  furnaces;  and  thus  the  opportunity  for  acquamt- 
ance  with  their  employes  is  greatly  diminished. 
/Not  only  so,  but  a  large  pat  of  the  production  of 


The  .-'duties  of  Employers.  171 


the  country  is  now  done  by  corporations;  and  most 
of  the  capitalists  that  organize  and  control  the  busi- 
ness have  in  this  case  nothing  whatever  to  do  witli 
the  work-people.  The  agent  that  manages  tlic  work 
for  them  sometimes  has  a  limited  interest  in  the 
profits  of  production  ;  but  he  is  usually  a  salaried 
man,  and  he  understands  that  what  s  wanted  of  him 
is,  to  make  the  annual  dividends  on  the  stock  as 
large  as  possible.  The  operatives  know  him  only  as 
the  representative  of  the  corporation  :  they  hear  him 
say  that  he  is  limited  in  his  actions  by  the  authority 
of  the  corporation  ;  if  he  deals  hardly  with  them, 
they  are  given  to  understand  that  it  is  by  order  of 
the  board  of  directors,  and  that  he  has  no  alternative 
in  the  matter.  Who  or  what  this  corporation  is, 
they  do  not  know  at  all.  Perhaps  they  have  never 
heard  the  names  of  the  capitalists  that  constitute  and 
control  it;^  It  is  a  great  impersonal  force,  a  mighty 
commercial  machine ;  and  to  expect  of  it  a  just 
consideration,  or  a  nice  regard  for  the  equities  of 
contracts,  would  be  of  course  preposterous.  "Cor- 
porations have  no  souls: "  how,  then,  can  they  govern 
themselves,  in  their  relations  with  the  persons  in  their 
employ,  by  high  moral  considerations? 

This  tendency  to  separate  the  capitalist  and  the 
laborer,  either  through  the  intervention  of  corpo- 
rations,   or    through    the   building    up    of  immense 


172       Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

industml  concerns  by  individuals  or  firms,  is  one 
of  the  things  to  b?  deplored  and  resisted  by  all 
employers  that  mean  to  govern  themselves  by  the 
Christian  law.  I  do  not  condemn  the  large  system 
of  industry.  It  is  doubtless  better  that  much  of  the 
work  of  manufacturing  should  be  done  on  a  grand 
scale.  Division  of  labor  greatly  reduces  the  cost  of 
production ;  and  the  cheaper  the  products  of  industry 
can  be  made,  the  better  it  is  for  all  classes.  But  it 
is  not  well,  and  it  is  not  necessary,  that  the  proprietor 
of  a  large  establishment  should  withdraw  himself 
from  all  personal  relations  with  his  work-people.  It 
is  quite  possible  for  him  to  know  them  well,  and  to 

,  study  how  he  may  fulfil  the  injunction  of  the  apostle, 
and  give  unto  them  that  which  is  just  and  equal. 
He  is  in  some  degree  responsible  for  their  welfiire, 
and  he  ought  not  to  ignore  them. 

Neither  is  it  necessary  that  the  persons  who  consti- 
tute our  great  corporations  should  be  wholly  ignorant 

'  of  the  condition  of  the  people  in  their  employ.  If 
the  corporation  has  no  soul,  each  individual  member 
of  it  has  one  ;  and  he  is  bound  to  think,  not  only  of 
the  dividends  upon  his  stock,  and  how  they  may  be 
enlarged,  but  also  of  the  well-being  of  the  men  and 
women  and  children  through  whose  labor  his  capital 
is  utilized  and  increased.  The  bond  of  mo7'al  obli- 
gation that  unites  him  to  them  is  a  strong  one,  and 


The  Duties  of  Einploycrs.  173 


he  must  not  try  to  release  hinself  froiu  it  lie  oii^''lH 
to  insist,  for  one  thing,  that  the  agent  to  whom  the 
management  of  the  business  is  intrusted  sliall  jje  a 
man  not  only  of  exeeutive  ability,  but  of  large  and 
wise  humanity,  who  will  deal  with  working-people  a' 
though  they  were  human  beings,  and  Avill  study  thei) 
interests,  as  well  as  the  interests  of  the  stockholders. 

I  know  that  there  are  capitalists  among  us,  mem- 
bers of  corporations,  who  do  think  of  these  things 
and  whose  power  is  /steadily  exerted  in  behalf  of 
the  working-people.  The  men  that  own  our  mills 
and  our  mines  are  not  all  greedy,  hard-hearted,  un- 
scrupulous beings :  very  many  of  them  are  honestly 
trying  to  temper  the  hard  facts  of  business  life  with 
Christian  love.  Agents,  too,  there  are,  that  are 
always  thoughtful  of  the  welfare  of  the  workmen  ; 
that  would  not  hold  their  places  for  one  hour  unless 
they  were  permitted  to  deal  fairly  and  mercifully 
with  their  hired  laborers.  "^A  very  large  proportion  of 
the  employers  of  labor  are  men  of  this  character ;  and 
their  humane  regard  for  the  people  in  their  employ 
is  manifested  sometimes  in  a  very  practical  way. 
For  though  the  profits  of  business  a/e  sometimes 
large,  and  the  capitalist's  gains  are  rapid  then,  at 
other  times,  as  at  present,  the  losses  are  constant; 
and  but  for  the  accumulations  of  more  prosperous 
seasons,  the  business  must  stop  altogether,  and  the 


174       IVorkiu}^  People  and  I  heir  Employers, 


laborers  must  suiFcr  for  the  lack  of  employment 
Long  periods  frequently  occur  in  which  the  workmen 
are  paid  literally  out  of  the  pockets  of  the  employ- 
ers; in  which,  for  the  sake  of  keeping  the  mills  run- 
ning, and  the  work-people  from  want,  the -employers 
grow  poorer  instead  of  richer,  month  after  month. 
Everybody  knows  that  such  cases  occur,  ani  they 
show  that  capitalists  in  New  England  do  take  thought 
for  their  laborers  as  well  as  themselves. 

But,  unfortunately,  we  are  all  familiar  with  in- 
stances of  a  different  character,  in  which  the  greed 
of  the  capitalist  has  led  to  heartless  and  extortionate 
treatment  of  working-people.  I  knew  of  one  cor- 
poration, in  a  distant  city,  that  discharged  a  most 
competent  and  faithful  agent,  because  he  devoted  a 
large  part  of  his  Sundays  and  of  his  evenings  to  the 
promotion  of  the  welfare  and  happiness  of  the  opera- 
tives under  his  care.  The  directors  seemed  to  think 
that  he  was  not  sufficiently  hard-fisted  and  stony- 
hearted for  their  purposes,  and  they  turned  him  out. 
T  am  happy  to  learn  that  their  business  has  never 
pro^'.pered  since  it  left  his  hands. 

Though  such  cases  as  these  a/e,  I  hope,  excep- 
tional, yet  they  illustrate  the  point  I  am  trying  to 
make,  -^that  the  tendency  of  the  large  system  of 
industry  is  to  render  capital  impersonal,  and  thus 
uinnoral,   if  not  immoral,  in  its  relations   to   labor 


The  Duties  of  Employers.  175 

It  is  a  tendency  that  may  bo,  and  often  is,  success 
fully  resisted ;  but  it  is  only  resisted  by  a  resolute 
determination  on  the  part  of  individual  capitalists  to 
rule  their  business  by  the  Christian  law.  "^So  long  as 
the  wages  system  prevails  (and  it  will  not  be  super- 
seded for  many  years),  the  employers  of  labor  will 
be,  to  some  degree,  responsible  for  the  well-being 
of  the  mechanics  and  operatives.  The  power  that 
wealth  gives  them,  especially  when  it  is  centralized 
and  consolidated  in  great  stock-companies,  is  a  power 
that  carries  with  it  heavy  obligations.  Let  me  men- 
tion, a  little  more  specifically,  a  few  of  these, 
li  First  among  them  is  the  obligation  of  the  capitalist 
to  care  for  the  physical  health  and  comfort  of  his 
work-people.  Some  kinds  of  labor  are  almost  ne- 
cessarily injurious  to  health ;  but  any  kind  of  work 
will  kill  if  carried  on  in  badly  lighted  and  imper- 
fectly ventilated  rooms.  The  employer  is  bound  to 
make  this  a  subject  of  study,  and  to  have  his  rooms 
so  arranged  and  fitted  up  as  to  secure  in  them  light 
and  warmth,  and  fresh  wholesome  air.  Whatever  aid 
science  can  give  him  in  the  solution  of  this  pn»blem, 
he  ought  to  avail  himself  of  There  are  health 
saving  as  well  as  labor-saving  contrivances  in  these 
better  days  of  ours;  and  the  humane  employer  will, 
if  he  is  able,  provide  the  one  kind  as  promptly  as  the 
other.     He  knows,  or  ought    to  know,  more  about 


176       Workins^  People  and  their  Employers, 


the  conditions  of  health  than  his  work-people  do; 
and  his  knowledge,  as  fast  as  he  acquires  it,  ought 
to  be  used  for  their  benefit. 

It  is  for  his  interest  to  do  this.  If  the  work- 
place is  bright,  airy,  comfortable,  and  the  workers 
feel  well  at  their  work,  they  will  accomplish  more, 
will  do  their  work  better,  and  will  be  much  less 
likely  to  become  discontented  and  disorderly.  ]\Ioney 
invested  in  improvements  intended  to  add  to  the 
cheerfulness  and  healthfulness  of  the  work  is  always 
well  invested.  But  even  if  it  were  not,  tbe  obliga- 
tion would  rest  with  equal  weight  upon  the  em- 
ployer. If  he  provides  the  place  in  which  his  work 
is  done,  he  ought  to  provide  a  good  place,  and  to 
see  to  it  that  those  in  his  employ  do  not  suffer  any 
bodily  damage  that  he  can  prevent. 

It  sometimes  happens  that  workmen  resent  and 
hinder  the  efforts  that  are  made  for  this  object.  Mr. 
Charles  Reade  gives  us  what  I  take  to  be  well 
accredited  flicts  in  his  story,  "  Put  Yourself  iu  Ilis 
Place,''  by  which  the  perversity  of  workmen  in  this 
matter  is  illustrated.  When  a  master- workman  pro 
vided  fans  to  remove  the  metal  dust  and  stone  grit 
arising  from  the  grinding  of  saws,  his  hands  refused 
to  put  them  in  gear,  loreferring  to  go  on  inhaling  dis- 
ease with  every  breath.  Not  until  he  had  discharged 
several  of  them  for  neglecting   to  avail   themselveg 


The  Duties  of  Ei)iployers.  17 


ol*  the  health-saving  apparatus  provided  for  tliein, 
could  he  succeed  in  bringing  it  into  use.  But  even 
if  the  laborers  are  indifferent  or  hostile  to  such 
measures,  that  is  no  reason  for  neglecting  them. 
The  opportunity  and  the  power  given  to  evc^ry 
employer  ought  to  be  beneficently  used.  Much  has 
])een  done  of  late  in  this  direction.  In  most  work- 
[*laces,  the  conditions  are  now  more  favorable  to 
health  than  they  formerly  were.  Ventilation  is  gen- 
erally attempted,  ceilings  arc  higher,  rooms  are  kept 
at  a  more  uniform  temperature,  and  in  many  ways 
work  is'  rendered  pleasanter  and  more  healthful. 
Doubtless  there  is  more  that  can  be  done,  and  good 
employers  will  not  forget  to  do  it. 

,  >  Again :  it  appears  to  be  the  dictate  at  once  of 
sound  policy  and  of  good  principles,  that  employers 
should  always  treat  their  help  with  polite  considera- 
tion. A  true  gen  leman  will  remember  that  he  is  a 
gentleman,  in  his  dealings  with  those  in  his  employ, 

*and  will  conduct  himself  so  that  they  too  will  have 
no  difficulty  in  finding  it  out.  He  will  neither  swear 
nor  storm  nor  scold  at  them ;  he  will  not  carry  him- 
self in  their  presence  as  though  he  thouglit  tliem  an 
inferior  race  of  bein2:s:  he  will  bestow  on  them  a 
civility  exactly  equal  to  that  with  which  he  treats  the 
head  of  his  commission-house  in  the  city.  If  it  is 
iiocessavy  for  him  to  give  an  order,  he  will  give  it 


78        Working  People  a7id  iheir  Employers, 


ill  tones  that  suggest  no  arroganee ;  if  it  is  neces- 
saiy  for  him  to  administer  a  reproof,  he  will  do  it 
without  pitehing  his  voice  in  the  key  of  exaspera 
tion.  It  may  be  perfectly  understood  among  his 
work-people,  that  his  orders  are  on  no  account  to  he 
disobeyed,  and  yet  his  whole  bearing  toward  them 
may  be  that  of  the  most  perfect  courtesy. 

One  of  the  truest  gentlemen  I  ever  knew  was  the 
superintendent  of  a  large  gang  of  navvies.  His 
treatment  of  them  was  always  affable  and  kind:  ho 
never  raised  his  voice,  or  roughened  his  tones,  in 
addressing  them ;  he  had  a  way  of  being  obeyed, 
Ijut  he  made  no  noise  about  it ;  and  the  consequence 
was,  that  he  never  had  the  slightest  trouble  from 
insubordination,  and  his  men  came  to  have  un- 
bounded regard  for  him. 

The  dictatorial,  domineering  ways  of  some  em- 
ployers are  exceedingly  exasperating  to  working- 
people.  They  feel  that  they  are  wronged  by  such 
treatinent,  and  they  are.  Every  man,  poor  or  rich,' 
hod-carrier  or  capitalist,  has  a  right  to  respectful 
treatment.  "Be  courteous"  is  the  gospel  rule  of 
good  manners,  and  the  injunction  is  not  limited.  The 
people  whom  you  employ  are  not  excepted.  Your 
obligation  to  treat  them  politely  is  just  as  binding  as 
your  obligation  to  deal  with  them  honestly. 

This  rule  ought  to  be  understood  as  applying  to 


The  Duties  of  Employers.  1 79 


tbo  kitchens,  as  well  as  to  the  shops  and  tl  e  mills. 
The  duty  of  the  parlor  to  treat  the  kitchen  courte- 
ously is  not  often  recognized.  Indeed,  T  should  not 
wonder  if  the  bare  suggestion  would  provoke  the  mer- 
riment of  some  who  read  these  words.  But,  ladies, 
it  is  an  obligation  that  cannot  be  set  aside.  Your 
servant-girls  have  just  as  good  a  right  to  be  politely 
treated  by  you  as  your  afternoon  callers  have.  True 
Christian  courtesy  is  not  reserved  for  people  who 
wear  fine  raiment :  it  falls  like  the  dew,  without  par- 
tiality, on  weed  and  flower.  You  may  be  as  positive 
in  the  laws  of  your  household,  and  as  thorough  in 
their  enforcement,  as  you  please ;  but  there  is  no  need 
of  scolding.  A  servant  that  you  cannot  control  by 
gentle  measures,  you  cannot  control  at  all.  And  it 
is  entirely  possible,  without  abrogating  the  authority 
that  belongs  to  you  as  mistress  of  the  house,  and 
without  taking  your  domestics  into  your  confidence, 
to  treat  them  always  with  a  gentle  and  gracious  con- 
sideration which  shall  be  as  grateful  to  them  as  it  is 
honorable  to  you. 
{f^  For  the  intellectual  improvement  of  their  working- 
people,  employers  ought  to  have  a  care.  Wherever 
large  numbers  of  operatives  are  gathered,  they  ought 
to  be  encouraged  and  assisted  in  forming  lyceums, 
and  collecting  libraries.  In  all  such  efforts  to 
improve  themselves,  laborers  should  feel  that  they 


i8o      Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

have  the  hearty  co-operation  of  capitalists.  In 
Lonsdale,  R.  I.,  I  found,  on  a  recent  visit,  a  large 
and  beautiful  building  erected  by  the  proprietors  of 
the  mill,  and  devoted  almost  wholly  to  the  instruction 
and  diversion  of  the  working-people.  It  contained 
a  well-selected  library,  rooms  for  debating-clubs  and 
social  meetings,  and  a  fine  hall,  capable  of  seating 
more  than  a  thousand  people,  in  which  every  winter 
a  course  of  entertainments,  consisting  of  literary  and 
scientific  lectures,  with  a  few  more  popular  amuse- 
ments, is  given  at  very  low  cost  to  the  operatives 
and  their  families.  The  hall  is  free ;  and  a  thousand 
season  -  tickets,  at  a  dollar  each,  easily  pays  for 
procuring  ten  or  a  dozen  good  entertainments.  It 
was  pleasant  to  see  the  effect  of  this  provision  upon 
the  characters  of  the  work-people.  I  found  in  that 
hall  the  largest  and  one  of  the  most  intelligent 
lecture  -  audiences  that  I  ever  addressed  in  New 
England ;  and  the  next  day  in  the  great  mill,  and 
throughout  the  village,  the  signs  of  refinement  and 
contentment  were  everywhere  visible.  It  was  good 
to  know  that  one  of  the  most  powerful  manufactur- 
ing companies  in  New  England  was  using  its  power 
in  a  manner  so  beneficent. 
^  I  shall  not  be  disputed,  either,  if  I  affirm  that 
employers  ought  to  be  interested  in  the  moral  and 
religious  welfare  of  the  persons  in  their  employ.     It 


TJic  DtUics  of  Employers.  £8i 

is  true  that  the  relation  of  employer  and  lalK)rer  is  a 
business  relation  ;  and  it  may  be  said,  that  if  the 
employer  goes  outside  of  the  contract,  and  interests 
himself  in  the  moral  and  religious  condition  of  hia 
work  people,  he  is  meddling  with  what  is  none  of 
his  business.  Doubtless  he  may  do  this  oC&ciously 
and  offensively ;  but  it  is  possible  also,  I  think,  that, 
without  appearing  in  any  way  to  overstep  the  pro- 
prieties of  the  relation,  he  may"  take  a  deep  interest 
in  the  higher  welfare  of  the  people  who  work  for 
him.  The  Christian  law  is,  that  we  are  to  do  good 
to  all  men  as  we  have  opportunity  ;  and  certainly 
the  employer's  opportunity  is  among  his  employes. 
If  his  treatment  of  them  is  what  I  have  suggested 
it  should  be,  and  if  in  his  business  relations  with 
them  he  is  always  prompt  and  upright,  he  will 
certainly  have  their  respect,  and,  if  he  chooses,  may 
exert  a  strong  influence  over  them.  Without 
seeming  in  any  way  to  dictate  with  regard  to  their 
conduct,  he  may,  by  a  kind  word  spoken  now  and 
Ibcn,  by  advice  not  too  obtrusively  offered,  by  an 
expression  of  solicitude,  by  a  hearty  approval  of 
efforts  to  do  right,  confer  upon  them  incalculable 
benefits.  It  seems  to  me  that  every  employer  ought 
to  regard  the  people  in  his  employ  as  his  parish  ; 
that  he  ought  to  be  always  on  the  alert  to  find 
opportunities  and  ways  of  doing  them  good.      If  any 


1 82       Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

of  them  are  addicted  to  vice,  he  will  know  it ;  and  he 
ought  to  study  how  he  may  reclaim  them.  If  any 
of  them  are  sick  or  in  want,  he  may,  by  a  little 
attention  and  sympathy,  not  only  minister  to  their 
comfort,  but  also  increase  his  power  over  them  for 
their  good.  Among  those  in  his  employ  there  may 
be  young  people  away  from  home :  in  their  welfare 
he  ought  to  take  a  special  interest.  His  relation  to 
them  should  be  as  nearly  as  possible  a  paternal 
relation :  as  far  as  he  is  able,  he  should  supply  to 
them  the  restraint  and  the  counsel  with  which  they 
parted  when  they  left  their  homes.  There  are  those, 
it  is  true,  who  do  not  care  for  such  counsel ;  and 
upon  them  it  '  would  be  unwise  to  press  kind 
offices  that  they  do  not  appreciate.  But  there  are 
many  others  of  a  different  spirit ;  and  without  any 
formal  proffer  of  friendship  the  employer  may  easily 
enough  convey  to  the  young  men  and  women  at 
work  for  him  the  impression  that  he  is  willing  to  act 
the  part  of  a  friend,  if  they  need  one.  Such  a 
personal  interest  in  them,  made  manifest  in  some 
respectful  and  unobtrusive  way,  would  be  of  great 
service  to  many  of  them. 

When  persons  come  from  abroad  into  your 
employ,  it  may  not  be  amiss  for  you  to  inquire  of 
them  what  church  they  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
attending,  and  to  put  them  in  communication  witli 


The  Duties  oj  Employers,  183 


some  pastor  of  that  denoiniiiatioii  in  your  town.  If 
it  turns  out  that  they  have  not  been  in  tlio  liahit 
of  going  to  church,  you  might  properly  enough  men- 
tion to  them  the  names  of  those  churches  in  which 
you  know  that  tliey  woukl  be  welcome.  One  or  two 
employers  hire  seats  in  my  church  for  their  employes. 
I  am  so  old-lashioned  as  to  believe  that  going  to 
church  is  a  good  habit,  and  that  people  addicted  to 
it  are,  as  a  general  rule,  steadier,  more  industrious, 
and  more  virtuous,  than  those  who  are  not. 

I  have  been  writing  on  the  supposition  that  you 
are  living  for  some  higher  object  than  simply  to 
make  money.  If  that  is  your  chief  end,  I  am  aware 
that  these  suggestions  will  seem  to  you  very  imprac- 
ticable. Doubtless  it  is  not  well,  if  that  is  all  tliat  a 
man  is  after,  that  he  should  have  much  care  for 
other  people's  interests. 

A  keen  article  about  our  millionaires,  in  a  recent 
magazine,  closed  by  giving  some  of  the  indispensable 
conditions  of  attaining  to  millionism;  and  these  are 
three  of  them  :  — 

"You  must  devote  your  life  to  the  getting  and 
keeping  of  oilier  men's  earnings." 

"  You  must  care  little  or  nothing  about  other 
men's  wants  or  sufferings  or  disappointments." 

"  You  must  not  mind  it,  that  great  wca.ltli  involves 
many  others'  poverty." 


184      Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

I  can  easily  see  that  this  may  be  true.  And 
therefore,  if  any  of  jou  care  more  to  be  millionaires 
than  for  any  thing  else  in  the  world,  I  am  sure  you 
will  pay  no  heed  whatever  to  that  I  have  said.  You 
can't  afford  to  get  your  sympathies  involved  in  the 
welfare  of  the  people  you  employ,  if  this  is  your 
oljject  in  life.  You  had  better  keep  at  a  distance 
from  them,  deal  with  them  wholly  through  subor- 
dinates, shut  your  ears  and  your  hearts  to  their 
needs  and  their  troubles. 

But  I  should  be  sorry  to  believe  that  any  of  the 
employers  that  read  this  are  living  for  sucli  an  object. 
I  have  no  doubt  that  it  is  the  honest  purpose  of  all  of 
them,  to  do  some  good  in  the  world  as  they  go  along ; 
and,  this  being  their  purpose,  I  cannot  tliink  of  any 
field  of  usefulness  nearer  or  more  promising  than 
that  which  is  open  to  them  among  the  persons  in 
their  employ. 

I  believe  heartily  in  colleges,  and  missionary  socie- 
ties, and  Bible  societies,  and  all  such  enterprises  of 
benevolence,  and  want  to  do  what  1  can  to  help 
them;  but  if  the  impossible  should  come  to  pass, 
and  some  rich  relative  should  die,  and  leave  me  a 
million  of  dollars,  I  am  not  at  all  certain  that  I  should 
distribute  it  among  the  benevolent  societies,  or  use  it 
in  founding  a  college.  If  I  had  a  sufficient  knowl- 
edge of  business  to  warrant   me  in   organizing  some 


The  Duties  of  Employers.  185 

productive  industry  l)y  wliicli  a  large  nuuiljcr  of 
pcisons  might  find  employment  and  livelihood,  l)y 
which  a  number  of  families  might  be  gathered  intc» 
a  community,  and  aided  by  such  counsel  and  over- 
sight as  I  could  give  in  living  comfortably  and 
healthily  and  intelligently  and  purely,  I  do  not  know 
but  I  should  think  that  a  better  thing  to  do  than  to 
found  a  college,  or  endow  a  publication  society.  To 
use  such  a  business  relation  as  that  benevolently ;  to 
help  some  of  my  poorer  neighbors  in  helping  them- 
selves, to  fnid  my  pleasure  and  my  reward  in  making 
the  way  of  hfe  a  little  plainer  and  a  little  smoother 
and  a  little  brighter  for  them  ;  to  make  them  sharers 
with  me  in  the  joint  rewards  of  their  labor  and  my 
capital,  and  to  aid  them  in  getting  on  their  own  feet 
and  standing  in  their  lot  in  some  manly  and  indepen- 
dent fiishion,  —  such  a  work  as  this,  if  I  only  kiiew 
enough  to  do  it,  would  give  me  greater  satisfaction 
than  any  thing  else  I  could  do ;  and  I  doubt  whether 
any  way  of  using  money  could  be  devised  more 
truly  benevolent  or  Christian  than  this. 

Are  not  such  opportunities  on  a  larger  or  a  smaller 
scale  open  to  all  of  you,  gentlemen  capitalists  ?  and 
is  there  any  better  way  for  you  to  serve  Christ  and 
your  country  than  to  put  yourselves  thus  into  kindly 
and  helpful  relations  Avith  the  people  yoi;  employ  ? 

Many  of    those    who    have    amassed    wealth    fxud 


iSG      lVo7^/cing  People  and  thei}'  Employers. 

their  pleasure  in  improving  the  soil,  or  the  domestic 
nnimals:  perhaps  the  time  may  come  when  the  im- 
provement of  the  condition  and  the  character  of 
human  beings  will  afford  to  some  good  men  an  equal 
pleasure.  ^  It  is  not  by  alms  or  largesses  that  we 
wisely  aid  our  fellow-men,  but  by  encouraging  them 
in  their  efforts  to  take  care  of  themselves.  There  is 
a  great  field  here  for  philanthropic  labor;  and  the 
time  will  come,  I  doubt  not,  when  good  men  will 
be  ready  to  occupy  it 


IX. 

THE  FUTURE   OF   LABOR. 


"The  country  clergyman  is  the  poor  man's  only 
friend,"  wrote  an  English  rector's  wife  to  John 
Ruskin.  "Alas,  I  know  it,"  was  the  reply,  "and 
too  well.  What  can  be  said  of  more  deadly  and 
ghastly  blame  against  the  clergy  of  England,  or  any 
other  country,  than  that  they  are  the  poor  man's 
only  friends?  Have  they,  then,  so  betrayed  their 
Master's  charge  and  mind  in  their  preaching  to  the 
rich,  so  smoothed  their  words  and  so  sold  their 
authority,  that,  after  twelve  hundred  years  intrusting 
of  the  gospel  to  them,  there  is  no  man  in  England 
who  will  have  mercy  on  the  poor  but  they  ?  " 

To  this  condemnation,  ministers  of  the  gospel,  even 

/here    in    New   England,    are    continually    exposed. 

'  There  is  imminent  danger  that  our  churches,  instead 

187 


1 88      Working  People  and  their  Employers. 


of  shaping  society,  will  be  shaped  by  society ;  that 
the  laws  of  nature,  working  themselves  out  in  the 
world  of  finance  and  exchanges,  will  domineer  the 
Christian  law ;  that  the  fissure  now  running  through 
the  social  world,  and  threatening  to  become  a  great 
gulf  fixed  between  the  employing  and  the  laboring 
classes,  will  divide  the  religious  world  as  well :  so 
that  there  shall  be  a  system  of  caste  recognized  and 
established  in  our  churches;  so  that  the  rich  shall 
meet  by  themselves  in  the  grand  churches,  and  the 
poor  in  the  mission- chapels ;  and  there  shall  be  no 
sympathy  nor  communion  between  the  two  classes, 
but  only  alms,  with  a  certain  haughty  condescension 
on  the  one  side,  and  a  qualified  mendicancy,  with 
envious  resentment,  on  the  other.  This  is  the  danger, 
I  say,  to  which  our  Christianity  is  exposed  here  in 
New  England,  and  especially  in  our  manufacturing 
cities  and  villages.  It  is  nothing  occult,  mystical, 
visible  only  to  the  eye  of  the  seer :  it  is  right  before 
our  faces ;  the  wayfaring  man,  though  ever  so  heed- 
less, cannot  help  seeing  it.  And  when  you  speak 
of  it  to  faithful  and  self-denying  ministers  and  lay- 
men, the  common  answer  is  confession.  "  I  know  it : 
it  is  a  great  pity;  but  what  can  you  do  about  it? 
You  must  take  society  as  it  is,  and  make  your  work 
conform  to  its  usages.  Thci'c  is  no  use  in  running  a 
muck  against  the  social  tendencies  of  the  day."     KW 


The  Future  of  Labor.  189 


the  while  the  breach  grows  wider.  There  is  no  lack 
of  organized  charities,  hospitals,  h  jmes,  relief  agen- 
cies, city  missions,  and  all  that;  but  I  sometimes 
think  these  very  agencies  aggravate  the  evil.  A  man 
wants  sympathy,  and  we  give  him  a  soup-ticket ;  ho 
needs  friendly  counsel,  and  we  commend  him  to  the 
soft  side  of  a  charitable  board.  Thus  our  very  char- 
ity becomes  impersonal  and  indiscriminate,  serves 
only  to  separate  still  more  widely  those  whom 
Christ  died  to  bring  together.     Of 

"Almsgiving  through  a  door  that  is 
Not  open  enough  for  two  friends  to  kiss," 

there  is  plenty  :  of  the  Christian  practice  of  bearing 
one  another's  burdens  there  is  less  and  less  as  our 
civilization  increases  in  complexity.  This  fact  is 
what  adds  such  pungency  to  that  terrible  satire, 
published  a  few  months  ago,  entitled,  "Modern 
Christianity  a  Civilized  Heathenism."  This  is  the 
sad  result  to  which  Mr.  Ruskin  points  in  the  woids 
of  upbraiding  which  I  quoted  above.  Quite  willing, 
far  too  willing,  are  most  of  our  good  Christians  to 
let  the  clergyman  be  the  poor  man's  only  friend ;  to 
turn  over  to  him  the  duty  of  caring  for  the  lowlier 
classes  of  society;  to  make  him  a  sort  of  charitable 
middle-man  whose  function  it  is  to  keep  the  poor 


J90      Working  People  a7id  their  Employers. 

from  troubling  the  rich,  and  the  rich  from  taking 
thought  for  the  poor. 

For  my  own  part,  I  quite  decline  to  stand  in  any- 
such  position  as  this.  It  is  the  business  of  the 
people,  as  well  as  of  the  minister,  to  know  the  poor 
lliat  are  always  with  us,  and  to  study  the  hard 
problems  of  their  present  and  their  future.  It  is  the 
minister's  duty  to  protest,  in  the  name  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  against  the  division  of  the  Church  and  of 
society  into  jealous  and  unsympathizing  classes.  It 
is  the  duty  of  the  minister  to  tell  the  poor  and  the 
ignorant  that  they  are  often  wickedly  envious  and 
suspicious  of  the  rich ;  that  they  incase  themselves, 
not  seldom,  in  such  an  armor  of  distrustfulness  and 
surliness  that  nobody  can  get  near  them  in  any 
friendly  way ;  that  the  prosperity  of  their  neighbors, 
at  which  they  are  often  angry,  is  not  always  owing 
to  the  fact  that  their  neighbors  are  more  dishonest  or 
more  unscrupulous  than  they  are,  but  often  to  the 
fact  that  their  neighbors  are  more  industrious  and 
more  prudent  than  they  are.  It  is  my  duty  thus  to 
warn  the  poor  against  bitterness  and  injustice  in  their 
judgments  of  the  rich.  I  have  been  poor  myself, 
and  know,  by  the  teachings  of  my  own  heart,  just 
how  wickedly  poor  people  often  feel  toward  those 
who  are  better  off  for  this  world. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  the  minister's  duty  to  waru 


The  Future  of  Labor,  1 9 1 


the  ricli  against  the  indifference  and  contempt  with 
which  they  often  treat  their  poorer  neighbors,  and  to 
admonish  them  that  the  gospel  of  Christ  requires  of 
those  who  possess  wealth  or  culture  or  power  a 
benevolent  use  of  it,  as  good  stewards  of  God's  mani- 
fold grace ;  to  declare  to  them,  in  season  and  out  of 
season,  that  part  of  the  counsel  of  God  which  makes 
it  plain  that  the  careless  or  selfish  handling  of  prop- 
erty or  knowledge  will  bring  a  curse  to  its  possessor ; 
and  to  bid  them,  again  and  again,  "  to  look  not  every 
man  on  his  own  things,  but  also  on  the  things  of 
others." 

Moreover,  it  is  the  preacher's  duty  to  show  to  both 
classes,  and  to  all  classes  in  society,  that  they  are 
bound  together  in  a  community  of  interests,  so  that 
one  class  cannot  suffer  without  bringing  suffering 
upon  all  the  rest ;  so  that  no  class  can  rise  to  any 
sure  eminence,  or  any  permanent  power,  by  the  deg- 
radation of  the  rest. 

I  do  not  believe  that  the  descendants  of  the  Pil- 
grim Fathers  are  unAvilling  to  recognize  the  practical 
bearings  of  Christian  principles.  Therefore  I  ask  you 
now  to  study  for  a  little  while  the  question  of  the 
working-man's  future,  —  a  question  in  which,  if  our 
religion  is  true,  the  manufacturer  and  the  merchant 
and  the  professional  man  are  interested  not  much 
less  deeply  than  the  working-man  himself     I  ask  you 


192       Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

to  consider  it,  not  as  capitalists,  nor  as  traders,  nor 
as  politicians,  nor  as  the  disciples  of  economic  schools, 
nor  as  trades-unionists,  nor  as  Sovereigns  of  Industry ; 
but  as  citizens,  as  philanthropists,  as  disciples  of  Jesu3 
Christ.     What  is  to  become  of  the  working-man  ? 

1.  Of  those  who  would  remand  him  to  the  bond- 
age from  wliich,  after  centuries  of  degradation,  lie 
has  escaped,  and  make  him  the  chattel  of  his  em- 
ployer, there  are  almost  none  among  us ;  so  that  we 
may  dismiss  that  contingency,  as  among  things  so 
unlikely  as  to  be  morally  impossible. 

2.  In  certain  states  of  society  different  from  ours, 
we  should  expect  to  find  a  considerable  number  of 
those  who,  like  Mr.  Ruskin,  would  be  glad  to  see  a 
modified  type  of  feudalism  restored.  In  his  "Fors 
Clavigera,"  this  eminent  author  urges,  with  all  that 
passionate  eloquence  of  which  he  is  a  master,  the 
re-establishment  of  this  relation  between  the  em- 
ployer and  the  employed ;  so  that  on  the  one  hand 
there  shall  be  a  gentle  and  gracious  guardianship, 
and  on  the  other  a  loving  dependence ;  so  that  the 
two  races  of  masters  and  of  servants,  of  which  we 
read  in  the  Waverley  Novels,  shall  again  return  to 
earth.  The  spirit  in  which  Mr.  Ruskin  writes  is  of 
the  highest ;  and  his  demand  for  a  nearer  personal 
relation  between  the  two  classes  is  the  one  to  which, 
following  him  a  long  way  off,  I   have  tried  to  give 


The  Fuhire  of  Labor,  193 


expression.  The  fact  that  he  has  devoted  a  "arge 
portion  of  his  wealth  to  the  purchase  of  a  tract  of 
land  upon  which  he  proposes  to  carry  out  his  theory 
by  employing  men  and  women  to  work  for  him,  in 
whose  welfare  and  that  of  their  children  he  will  take 
a  kindly  care,  convinces  the  average  British  economist 
that  he  has  gone  mad.  Well,  be  it  so :  that  was 
what  they  said  about  Christ  when  he  began  to  unfold 
his  simple  laws  of  ministry  and  sacrifice.  Only  I 
cannot  help  wishing  that  some  tens  of  thousands 
more  of  the  rich  and  cultivated  people  of  both  conti- 
nents might  be  bitten  with  the  same  madness  th«» 
now  afflicts  John  Ruskin. 

Still,  though  the  spirit  in  which  he  writes  and 
works  is  the  very  spirit  of  the  Nazarene ;  and 
though,  while  the  present  system  of  industry  contin- 
ues, no  better  result  can  be  hoped  for  than  that  the 
hearts  of  the  masters  should  be  turned  to  the  sei 
vants,  and  the  hearts  of  the  servants  to  the  mastoid • 
—  nothing  is  plainer  than  that  Mr.  Ruskin's  Utopia 
will  not  stand,  in  the  latter  day,  upon  the  earth. 
While  the  wealth  of  the  world  belongs,  as  now,  to 
the  few,  it  is  of  course  devoutly  to  be  desired,  that, 
between  the  opulent  few  and  the  dependent  many, 
there  should  be  a  relation  of  gracious  care  on  the 
one  side,  and  of  thankful  loyalty  on  the  cth(?r.  Such 
9  relation  is  infinitely  better  than  the  present  conflict 

13 


194      Working  People  a*id  their  Employers. 

of  haughty  greed  with  resentful  suspicion;  but  be 
the  dependence  of  ever  so  happy  and  contented  a 
type,  we  hope  there  is  something  far  better  in  store 
for  tlie  many  ;  and,  in  our  present  inquiry,  we  are 
looking  to  see  what  that  shall  be. 

/  3.  The  policy  of  the  trades-unions  is  exactly  the 
opposite  of  that  urged  by  Mr.  E-uskin  ;  namely,  the 
arraying  of  the  laboring-classes  in  a  warfare  against 
their  employers.  By  such  an  organized  conflict  with 
the  class  of  capitalists,  the  trades-unionists  seem  to 
suppose  that  they  may  permanently  improve  the 
condition  of  the  laboring  class ;  that  they  may 
conquer  in  war  some  advantages  that  would  not 
accrue  to  them  under  the  reign  of  peaceful  industry 
and  free  competition. 

Three  principal  methods  are  resorted  to  by  the 
unions.  Tirst,  they  demand  increased  wages,  and 
refuse    to   work    if    the   demand   is   not   conceded. 

\^  Second,  they  endeavor,  to  prevent  an  increase  in  the 
number  of  laborers.  Third,  they  try  to  enforce  rules 
for  increasing  the  amount  of  work.  As  to  the 
first  of  these  methods,  I  have  said  already  that  it  is 
perfectly  lawful,  provided  that  violence  is  let  alone, 
and  no  attempt  is  made  to  force  unwilling  workmen 
to  join  the  strike.  It  may  often  be  foolish,  and 
morally  unjustifiable,  to  demand  higher  wages, 
because   it  may  be  that   the   wages  refused  are  as 


The  Future  of  Labor.  195 


large  as  can  be  paid  without  ruining  the  business : 
but  freedom  to  work  involves  the  freedom  to  refrain 
from  working ;  and  it  would  be  neither  politic  nor 
just  to  deny  to  workmen  the  right  of  combining  to 
s(^cure  their  own  interests. 

As  to  the  other  methods,  which  attempt  the 
reduction  of  the  number  of  laborers  by  forbidding 
apprentices,  and  preventing  non-union  men  from 
working,  and  which  seek  to  increase  the  number  of 
day's- works  to  be  done,  by  making  rules  that  men 
shall  work  slowly,  and  do  their  work  poorly,  so  that 
it  shall  quickly  wear  out  and  need  to  be  replaced, 
they  are  at  once  barbarous  and  absurd.  "  You  are 
strictly  cautioned,"  says  a  by-law  of  the  Bradford 
(England)  Bricklayers'  Laborers,  "not  to  overstep 
good  rules  by  doing  double  work,  and  causing 
others  to  do  the  same,  in  order  to  gain  a  smile  from 
the  master.  Such  foolhardy  and  deceitful  actions 
leave  a  great  portion  of  good  members  out  of 
employment.  Certain  individuals  have  been  guilty, 
who  will  "be  expelled  if  they  do  not  refrain."  .  .  . 
The  Manchester  Bricklayers'  Association  have  a  rule 
providing  that  "  any  man  found  running  or  working 
beyond  a  regular  speed  shall  be  fined  Is.  6c/.  for  the 
first  offence,  55.  for  the  second,  IO5.  for  the  third, 
and,  if  still  persisting,  shall  be  dealt  with  as  the 
committee  think  proper.  .  .  .  During  the    building 


196       Working  People  and  tJieir  EmpliytTs, 

of  the  Manchester  Law  Courts,  the  bricklayers^ 
laborers  struck,  because  they  were  desired  to  wheel 
bricks,  instead  of  carrying  them  on  their  shoulders."  * 
By  such  regulations  as  these,  everywhere  en- 
forced, the  trades-unions  seem  to  suppose  that  Ihey 
can  improve  the  condition  of  their  members. 
\f  But  such  regulations,  intended  as  they  are  to 
hinder  and  cripple  production,  to  keep  men  out  of 
work  who  need  to  work,  and  to  restrict  the  gains  of 
labor  to  a  small  class,  are  not  only  contrary  to  all 
true  economy,  but  to  every  just  principle  of  human 
rights  and  human  progress.  It  is  for  the  interest  of 
the  whole  world,  that  every  man  in  it  shall  have  a 
chance  to  work  when  he  wants  to  work,  and  shall  be 
encouraged  to  do  good  work ;  in  no  other  way  can 
the  aggregate  wealth  of  the  world  be  increased ; 
and  the  larger  the  aggregate  wealth  of  the  world, 
the  larger,  if  exchanges  are  unrestricted,  will  each 
man's  portion  be.  All  methods  that  are  intended  to 
diminish  the  total  result  of  human  industry  arc 
essentially  vicious ;  and  it  would  seem  as  if  even  a 
dullard  might  see  that  they  must  be.  Moreover, 
these  regulations  to  which  I  have  referred  are  meant 
to  secure  the  aggrandizement  of  one  class  by  tho 
injury  of  other  classes.  You  will  never  prosper  in 
that  way,    my   friends.      You   cannot  rise   by   tram- 

1  Thornton  on  Labor,  quoted  by  Prof.  Cairnes. 


The  Future  of  Labor.  197 


pliug  your  neighbors  under  your  feet.  No  man's 
rights  can  be  established  by  doing  wrctig  to  his 
fellow-man. 

Mr.  Thornton,  a  distinguished  advocate  of  the 
Labor  Leagues  in  England,  bears  this  testimony : 
''  Whether  a  country  be  stationary  or  progressive,  an 
exceptionally  high  rate  of  wages  cannot  be  main- 
tained in  any  particular  trade,  unless  the  workmen 
of  all  other  trades  are  prevented  from  entering  that 
particular  trade,  and  endeavoring  to  get  the  same 
rate.  Unionism  cannot  keep  up  the  rate  in  one 
trade  without  keeping  it  down  in  others."  ^ 

That  is  just  as  plain  as  the  daylight ;  and  therefore 
one  is  quite  justified  in  saying  with  Prof  Cairnes 
that  trades-unionism,  so  far  as  it  operates  by  these 
restrictive  rules  of  labor,  "is,  in  its  essential  charac- 
ter, a  monopoly  of  the  narrowest  kind ;  capable, 
indeed,  of  accomplishing  some  small  results  in  favor 
of  a  privileged  few,  but  wholly  destitute  of  efficacy 
as  an  expedient  for  helping  social  improvement;  a 
monopoly,  moreover,  founded  on  no  principle  eiJiei 

1  Mr.  TliorntoiL  undertakes  to  show  that  this  method,  though  its 
advantages  are  secured  to  but  few  workmen  at  a  time  and  to  these  at 
the  expense  of  the  rest,  may  bo  gradually  extended,  until  its  benefits 
shall  be  shared  by  the  whole  laboring-class;  but,  as  Pi  3f.  Cairnes 
clearly  points  out,  the  eflficacy  of  the  plan  depends  wholly  on  the  fact 
that  it  creates  a  monopoly ;  and  "the  extension  of  its  privileges  to  die 
whole  population  would  \^  or|nivalent  to  tlieir  entire  abrogation."  Sea 
his  Political  Fmnnniy,  ]>.  2-1(5,  el  seq. 


198       Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

of  moral  desert  or  of  industrial  efficiency,  but  simply 
on  chance  or  arbitrary  selection ;  which,  therefore, 
cannot  but  exert  a  demoralizing  influence  on  all  who 
come  within  its  scope ;  in  all  its  aspects  presenting 
an  ungracious  contrast  to  all  that  is  best  and  moat 
generous  in  the  spirit  of  modern  democracy."  It  is 
not  by  such  methods  that  the  future  welfare  of  the 
working-man  will  be  promoted.  Every  resort  to 
these  exclusive  and  despotic  practices  postpones  the 
day  of  his  full  enfranchisement. 

4.  It  would  seem  as  if  some  sense  of  the  inef- 
ficacy,  if  not  of  the  immorality,  of  these  methods,  is 
beginning  to  dawn  upon  the  men  that  have  been  at  . 
the  head  of  the  trades-unions  in  this  country ;  for  I 
notice  that  some  of  them  are  beginning  openly  to 
discuss  another  project,  namely,  the  forcible  seizure 
of  the  mills  and  the  factories.  Either  this,  or  a 
political  revolution  placing  in  power  a  government 
that  shall  proceed  to  take  possession  of  the  property 
of  the  country,  and  administer  it  for  the  equal  bene- 
fit of  all  individuals,  would  seem  to  be  the  present 
ambition  of  some  of  these  astute  philosophers.  Be- 
tween these  two  methods,  I  do  not  know  that  there 
is  much  to  choose.  If  the  policy  of  pillage  is  to 
prevail,  we  may  as  well  be  pillaged  by  a  mob  armed 
with  bludgeons/as  by  another  mob  armed  with  the 
forms  of  law.     For  of  these  schemes,  as  of  all  social- 


The  Fuhire  of  Labor.  199 


istic  schemes  that  involve  the  abolition  of  private 
property,  and  the  re-distribution  of  wealth  according 
to  some  d  'priori  theory  of  justice,  tlie  essence  is  sim- 
ply pillage.  The  fundamental  maxim  of  the  radical 
socialists  is,  that  property  is  robbery ;  and  fortified 
by  this  maxim,  they  propose  to  take  by  force  the 
vv<;alth  of  the  world  from  those  who  now  possess  it, 
and  who  have  no  right  to  it,  as  they  say,  and  give  it 
to  somebody  else,  who  certainly  has  no  better  right 
to  it.  This  is  a  queer  method  of  restitution.  This 
whole  socialistic  movement  is  philosophically  absurd. 
The  doctrine  that  property  is  robbery,  is  a  good  doc- 
trine for  robbers,  and  also  for  paupers,  but  not  for 
men  to  whom  manhood  means  something  more  than 
subsistence.  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  has  an  answer  to 
this  doctrine,  which  can  hardly  be  improved :  — 

"  If  all  property  is  robbery,  then,  among  other 
consequences,  it  follows  that  a  man  can  have  no  right 
to  the  things  he  consumes  for  food.  And  if  these 
are  not  his  before  eating  them,  how  can  they  become 
his  at  all  ?  As  Locke  asks.  When  do  they  begin  to 
be  his?  when  he  digests,  or  when  he  eats,  or  when 
lie  boils,  or  when  he  brings  them  home  ?  If  no  pre- 
vious act  can  make  them  his  property,  neither  can 
the  power  of  assimilation  do  it,  nor  even  their 
absorption  into  the  tissues.  Wherefore,  pursuing  the 
idea,  we  arrive  at  the  conclusion,  that  as  tlie  whole 


200      Working  People  and  their  Employers. 


of  his  bones,  muscles,  skin,  &c.,  have  been  built  up 
from  nutriment  not  belonging  to  him,  a  man  has  no 
property  in  his  own  flesh  and  blood,  can  have  no 
valid  title  to  himself,  has  no  more  claim  to  his  own 
limbs  than  he  has  to  the  limbs  of  another,  and  has  as 
good  a  right  to  his  neighbor's  body  as  to  his  own." 

That  is  the  fundamental  principle  of  socialism, 
reduced  to  its  lowest  terms.  A  neater  example  of 
reductio  ad  ahsurdum  it  would  be  hard  to  find. 

This  proposition  to  abolish  private  property,  and 
establish  the  commune  instead,  is  not  at  all  likely  to 
find  favor  among  American  working-men.  They 
have  sense  enough  to  know  that  such  a  system  must 
rest  its  foundations  on  organized  rapine,  and  that, 
even  if  it  could  once  be  founded,  the  practical  dif- 
ficulties in  the  way  of  the  distribution  of  wealth  by 
means  of  it  would  be  insuperable.^  But  apart  from 
these  enormities,  they  know  full  well  that  the  com- 
mune is  not  the  school  in  which  to  train  men.  Any 
organization  that  takes  away  from  individuals  the 
opportunity  and  the  need  of  self-reliance  is  fatal  to 
all  high  character.  We  have  seen  the  communistic 
principle  at  work  among  us  on  a  small  scale,  and 
what  have  been  the  results  ?  Look  at  such  commu- 
nities as  the  Shakers,  the  Mormons,  the  Oneida  Com- 
munity.    What   chance  is  there  in  them  for  a  man 

1  See  A-ppendix  A. 


The  Future  of  Labor,  201 


to    develop    his   own    individuality  ?      What   oppor- 
tunity for  the  cultivation  of  self-reliance  ? 

It  is  claimed  by  the  advocates  of  these  sysccms, 
that  the  competitions  of  society  are  too  fierce,  that 
they  breed  disorders,  that  they  sour  and  spoil  the 
characters  of  men ;  and  they  base  an  argument  for 
their  societies  upon  the  fact  that  they  exclude  these 
competitions.  Doubtless  it  is  true  that  the  contests 
in  which  men  must  take  part,  if  they  would  make 
their  way  through  life,  are  often  heated  and  severe  ; 
doubtless  there  is  need  that  the  principle  of  good- 
will should  come  in  to  temper  their  severities :  yet 
there  can  be  no  manhood  that  is  not  wrought  out 
through  conflict.  Take  a  child  that  has  been  coddled 
and  petted  at  home,  that  has  had  no  experience  of 
the  buffe tings  of  the  play-ground  or  the  street :  what 
does  he  amount  to  ?  Yet  it  is  just  such  characters 
as  these  that  the  socialistic  communities  must  inevi- 
tably produce,  if  they  are  what  they  pretend  to  be. 
Un  these  societies,  no  man  depends  upon  himself  for 
maintenance :  he  depends  upon  the  community.  He 
does  not  choose  his  own  courses  of  life :  they  are 
chosen  for  him  by  the  community,  lie  does  not 
forge  for  himself  the  weapons  with  which  to  wage 
the  warfare  of  life :  they  are  furnished  him  out  of 
the  armory  of  the  community.  Consequently  there 
can  be  no  such  thing  as  high  and  strong  individual 


2Q2       Working  People  and  their  Employeri>. 


character  in  such  a  society.  That  can  only  be  devel- 
oped by  standing  alone,  and  working  out  the  ques- 
tions of  existence  in  manly  independence.  In  such 
a  society,  where  people  dress  alike,  work  a'/ike,  live 
alike  in  all  particulars,  they  finally  come  to  look 
alike  and  to  think  alike  and  to  talk  alike.  The  uni- 
formity becomes  hateful  and  distressing  to  see.  It  is 
utter  stagnation.  The  soul  loses  sight  of  the  grand 
possibilities  of  life  ;  it  sinks  down  upon  the  dead 
level  of  conventions,  and  the  man  becomes  only  a 
part  of  a  great  social  machine. 

Is  not  this  true  ?  You  have  long  been  hearing  of 
these  societies  and  their  doings :  have  you  heard  of 
their  developing  any  high  grade  of  character  ?  The 
Shakers  make  excellent  hats  and  brooms ;  they  sell 
us  the  best  of  garden  seeds  and  healing  herbs ;  they 
raise  very  large  beets  and  squashes ;  they  produce  a 
very  fair  article  of  apple-sauce.  But  what  sort  of 
men  do  they  produce?  Do  they  amount  to  any 
thing?  The  same  question  may  be  asked,  with  the 
same  result,  in  regard  to  all  the  other  communistic 
societies.  The  great  body  of  the  members  are  all 
or.  one  level,  and  that  a  very  low  level,  of  attainment 
and  character.  I  do  not  speak  of  their  moral  quali- 
ties, but  of  their  mental  proportions.  The  theory  of 
these  communities  is,  that  all  the  members  are  equal 
in  rank  and  influence  ;   the  fact  is,  I  suspect,  that  one 


The  Future  of  Labor.  203 


individual  in  each  of  them  is  the  practical  dictator, 
and  the  rest  are  only  his  subjects.  There  is  but  one 
man  in  Morraondom,  and  that  is  Brigham  Young ; 
there  is  but  one  man  in  the  Oneida  Community,  — 
Mr.  John  Humphrey  Noyes;  Shakerdom  has  but  one 
prophet,  and  his  name  is  Frederick  Evans.  Each 
of  these  is  a  man  of  considerable  force ;  but  these 
are  the  whole  product  of  their  respective  communi- 
ties.    The  rest  are  nobodies. 

This  is  the  only  true  test  of  a  social  system,  —  tell 
us  what  kind  of  men  it  produces.  It  may  be  able  to 
show  better  agriculture,  more  successful  manufac- 
tures, a  more  economical  adaptation  of  the  physical 
forces,  a  better  provision  of  creature  comforts ;  but 
if,  with  all  this,  the  men  and  women  are  a  small- 
souled,  dull-witted,  inferior  type  of  humanity,  the 
system  is  a  bad  one.  I  do  not  think  I  am  slandering 
anybody  when  I  say  that,  tried  by  this  test,  these 
social  communities  are  failures. 

I  would  not  have  you  think  that  this  is  the  only 
or  the  worst  evil  connected  with  these  societies,  — 
that  they  destroy  self-reliance,  and  thus  depreciate 
individuality.  Their  repudiation  of  the  family  is  a 
much  greater  offence.  But  the  result  to  which  I  have 
pointed  is  enough  to  seal  the  condemnation  of  all 
communistic,  systems,  and  to  show  that  it  is  not  by 


204      Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

any  sucli  methods  that  the  working-men  of  the  future 
will  gain  the  greatest  good  of  life. 

If,  then,  it  is  not  through  bondage,  nor  through 
feudalism,  nor  through  trades-unionism,  nor  through 
Communism,  that  the  problem  of  the  working 
man's  welfare  is  to  find  its  solution,  by  what 
process  shall  he  work  it  out  ?  Is  the  present  system 
of  industry,  with  such  mitigations  of  its  hardships  as 
Christian  principle  may  be  trusted  to  secure,  the 
final  answer  to  this  question  ?  If  it  is,  then  I  fear 
we  must  say  that  the  working-man's  future  is  not 
very  bright. 

I  have  said,  in  my  first  chapter,  that  the  effect  of 
the  introduction  of  machinery  has  been  to  raise, 
rather  than  to  depress,  the  real  wages  of  labor ;  to 
increase,  that  is,  the  amount  of  the  necessaries  of  life 
a  day's  wages  will  buy.  That  statement  has  been 
confirmed  by  careful  study.  Still  the  improvement 
has  been  very  slow,  and  there  is  no  promise  that  it 
will  be  more  rapid  in  the  future.  Those  who  earn 
their  living  by  labor  are  a  little  better  off,  positively, 
than  they  were  twenty-five  or  fifty  years  ago :  rela- 
tively, they  are  not  so  well  off  as  they  were  then. 
There  has  been  an  enormous  increase  of  wealth ; 
but  the  jproportion  of  that  wealth  that  has  fallen  to 
the  laboring-classes  is  very  small,  and  it  is  constantly 
growing  smaller.     And  I  believe  that  most   of   the 


The  Future  of  Labor.  205 


political  economists  are  agreed  in  saying  that  this 
state  of  things  is  sure  to  continue,  under  the  present 
system ;  that  the  tendency  is  toward  an  increasing 
inequality  of  conditions ;  that,  while  the  rich  are 
likely  to  grow  richer,  the  poor  will  grow  relatively 
if  not  positively  poorer.  There  is,  as  Prof  Cairnes 
tells  us,  "a  constant  growth  of  the  national  capital, 
accompanied  with  a  nearly  equally  constant  decline 
in  the  loroportion  of  capital  which  goes  to  support 
productive  labor."  And  this,  as  he  says,  can  only 
issue  in  one  result ;  namely,  "  a  harsh  separation  of 
classes,  combined  with  those  glaring  inequalities  in 
the  distribution  of  wealth  which  most  j)eople  will 
agree  are  among  the  chief  elements  of  our  social 
instability." 

That  is  what  the  economists  prophesy;  and  the 
statistics,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  collate  them, 
confirm  the  prophecy.  The  prospect  is  not  a 
pleasant  one  to  contemplate.  It  is  not  much  comfort 
to  be  told  by  an  eminent  professor  that  "a  few,  more 
energetic  or  more  fortunate  than  the  rest,  will  from 
time  to  time  escape,  as  they  do  now,  from  the  ranks 
of  their  fellows  to  the  higher  walks  of  industrial  life," 
when  we  are  at  the  same  time  assured  that  "  the 
great  majority  will  remain  substantially  where  they 
are,"  and  that  "  the  remuneration  of  labor,  skilled  or 
unskilled,  can  never  rise  much  above  its  present  level.' 


2o6       Working-  People  and  their  Employers, 

There  is  one  way  out  of  this  condition  of  helpless 
dependence ;  and  that  is  by  an  organization  of  indus- 
try which  shall  encourage  and  assist  the  laborer  in 
passing  over  to  the  ranks  of  the  capitalists.  It  is 
not  by  the  abolition,  but  by  the  preservation  in  all 
its  sacredness,  of  private  property,  and  by  bringing 
to  bear  upon  the  laborer  all  the  motives  to  prudence, 
self-restraint,  economy,  and  industry,  that  now  actu- 
ate the  capitalist  in  his  accumulation  of  private 
property,  that  his  condition  will  be  improved. 

It  is  not  your  interest  nor  mine,  that  the  class  of 
mere  wage-laborers  should  remain  as  large  as  it  is. 
We  want  to  see  it  growing  smaller  year  by  year  ;  to 
see  large  numbers  forsaking  its  ranks  for  the  ranks 
of  the  capitalists ;  rising  up  from  a  condition  of  abso- 
lute dependence  to  one  of  comparative  independence. 
If  we  are  philanthropists,  if  we  are  patriots,  nay,  if 
we  are  good  and  humane  citizens,  we  are  deeply 
interested  in  every  movement  that  tends  to  give  an 
increasing  number  of  the  people  a  proprietary  in- 
terest in  the  wealth  of  the  country.  The  centrali- 
zation of  capital  is  just  what  we  do  not  want :  its 
widest  possible  diffusion  is  what  we  all  desire,  if  we 
are  wise. 

We  have  always  been  saying  that  it  is  vastly 
better  for  the  country  that  the  land  should  belong  to 
a  large  number  of  small  farmers  than  that  it  should 


The  Future  of  Labor,  207 


be  in  the  hands  of  a  few  great  proprietors,  leaving 
the  great  body  of  the  agrieulturists  to  be  either 
leaseholders  or  laborers.  Why  does  not  the  same 
pi'ineiple  hold  good  in  our  mechanical  industries? 
Why  is  it  not  to  be  desired,  for  the  same  reason,  that 
as  many  as  possible  of  the  people  that  live  by  them 
should  have  a  proprietary  interest  in  them?  Evciy 
man  that  owns  a  share  in  the  business  at  which  he 
works  is  by  that  fact  made  a  better  workman  and  a 
better  citizen. 

'i  To  be  sure,  the  only  way  in  which  working-men 
can  procure  capital  is  to  deny  themselves,  and  save 
it.  Sometimes  they  dream  of  getting  it  from  the 
government ;  of  having  a  great  loan-agency  estab- 
lished by  law  to  provide  laborers  with  the  means  for 
engaging  in  business  either  singly  or  in  co-operative 
companies.  But  this  is  a  wild  notion.  How  can  the 
government  get  the  money?  Only  by  taking  it 
away  from  other  citizens.  Working-men  cannot 
reasonably  look  for  such  subvention  in  their  enter- 
prises. 'They  must  stand  on  their  own  feet,  and 
work  out  their  own  fortunes.  If  they  can  save  their 
earnings,  and  combine  them  as  capital,  and  thus 
become  directly  interested  in  the  profits  of  their 
labor,  they  will  in  due  time  rise  into  a  position  of 
independence.  This  is  what  I  believe  they  will 
leai'n  to  do  in  the  future. 


2oS      Working  People  and  their  E^nployers. 

I  have  expressed  this  opinion  pretty  confidently  in 
my  second  chapter;  and  the  conclusion  to  which  my 
own  thinking  has  led  me  is  one  that  the  writers  in 
Great  Britain  who  have  been  brought  to  close  quar- 
ters with  this  problem  are  almost  unanimous  in 
afl&rming.  What  John  Stuart  Mill  has  written,  and 
what  Thomas  Hughes  has  said  about  it,  I  know;  but 
those  men  might  be  suspected  of  a  little  sentimental 
aberration,  and  therefore  I  might  not  have  dared  to 
strengthen  myself  by  their  utterances.  But  when  1 
find  a  Tory  peer  like  Lord  Derby  declaring  that  the 
experiment  of  co-operation  promises  well,  and  ought 
to  be  fairly  tried,  and  arguing  that  the  principle  is 
not  discredited  by  the  failures  hitherto  encountered 
in  its  practical  working,  inasmuch  as  almost  every 
other  great  principle  has  been  brought  into  opera- 
tion through  just  such  repeated  failures ;  when  I 
hear  a  rich  contractor  and  employer  cf  labor,  like 
Mr.  Thomas  Brassey,  saying,  "  We  earnestly  wish 
success  to  the  experiment  of  adapting  the  co-opera- 
tive principle  to  productive  industry ;  "  and  when  I 
find  Prof  Cairnes  of  London  (in  whose  decease,  re- 
cently, all  the  leading  English  journals  lament  the 
loss  of  the  ablest  living  political  economist)  writing 
that  ^'  Co-operation  constitutes  the  one  and  only  solu- 
tion of  our  present  problem,  the  sole  path  by  which 
the  laboring-classes  as  a  whole,  or  even  in  any  large 


The  Future  of  Labor.  209 

number,  can  emerge  from  their  condition  of  hand- 
to-mouth  living,  to  share  in  the  gains  and  honors 
of  advancing  civilization,"  —  I  think  I  may  endure, 
with  considerable  equanimity,  to  hear  it  said  (as  in 
some  quarters  doubtless  I  shall)  that  the  views  I 
have  here  expressed  show  just  how  much  a  minister 
knows  about  business.^ 

And  now  my  last  word  is,  that  every  honest  and 
well-considered  effort  on  the  part  of  working-men  to 
put  this  principle  into  practice  ought  to  have  the 
encouragement  of  every  one  of  us.  We  must  not 
look  upon  these  experiments  from  the  standpoint  of 
self-interest  merely;  we  must  not  think  to  measure 
them  with  our  yardsticks  and  our  half-bushels ;  we 
must  not  weigh  them  solely  with  our  steelyards :  we 
must  think  of  them  as  affecting  the  condition,  and 
especially  the  character,  of  our  neighbors;  and  if 
they  are  likely  to  result  in  good  to  human  beings, 
then  we  ought  to  rejoice  in  them.  We  cannot  afford 
to  be  angry  with  any  thing  that  opens  an  ampler 
life,  and  supplies  a  higher  motive,  to  any  of  our 
fellow-men. 

V  It  is  only  gradually,  and  by  very  slow  degrees, 
that  this  principle  of  co-operation  will  be  brought 
into  use.  But  few  of  our  working-men  possess  the 
requisite  intelli-gence  and  self-control  to  qualify  them 

1  See  Appendix  B. 


2IO       Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

for  united  action  in  this  field.  Here  and  there,  in 
a  small  way,  with  many  accompanying  failures,  the 
experiment  will  succeed.  It  is  not  going  to  revolu- 
tionize our  trade  or  our  industry  in  a  year,  or  in  ten 
years ;  but  learning  wisdom  by  defeat,  and  rising,  as 
a  class,  steadily  in  the  scale  of  intelligence,  group 
after  group  of  our  best  workmen  may  be  expected 
to  lift  themselves  out  of  dependence  into  a  posi- 
tion in  which  they  shall  own  the  tools  and  th(, 
machinery  and  the  stock  with  which  they  work,  "and 
enjoy  the  profits  of  the  capital  invested,  as  well  as 
the  wages  of  the  work  done.  And  every  time  that 
this  is  accomplished,  every  time  that  any  company  of 
workmen  prove  themselves  'capable  of  the  foresight 
and  the  self-denial  necessary  to  success  in  such  a  ven- 
ture, all  who  love  their  fellow-men  will  thank  God, 
and  take  courage ;  for  every  such  success  but  opens 
and  clears  the  path  over  which  the  millions  in  depen- 
dence and  penury  must  pass  into  the  competence 
and  the  peace  of  the  better  days  to  come. 


APPENDIX. 


The  question  of  the  feasibility  of  socialism  is  beginning 
to  be  argued  in  certain  quarters ;  and  it  is  not  unlikely  to 
be  pushed  into  considerable  prominence  during  the  next 
ten  years.  "  The  nationalization  of  '^.apital  "  is  what  is 
demanded  by  the  advocates  of  this  system  ;  and  by  capital 
they  mean  (I  quote  from  one  of  them)  "  the  machinery 
of  locomotion,  the  machinery  of  communication,  tlie  ma- 
chinery of  production,  the  machinery  of  distribution,  and 
the  products  of  industry  during  the  process  of  distribu- 
tion." Whether  legs  are  to  be  considered  as  part  of  the 
"  machinery  of  locomotion,"  and  tongues  as  part  of  "  the 
machinery  of  communication,"  and  whether  these  with 
the  railroads  and  the  telegraph  are  to  be  "  nationalized," 
our  advocate  does  not  tell  us.  It  would  seem,  however, 
to  a  casual  visitor  at  Washington,  that  a  sufficient  number 
of  these  unruly  members  are  already  "  nationalized,"  and 
that  a  project  for  the  domestication  of  a  few  of  them 
should  find  favor  with  the  working-classes.  Indeed,  the 
vice  of  depending  on  the  nation,  instead  of  depending  on 

213 


214       Working  People  and  their  Employers, 


themselves,  is  one  to  which  far  too  many  of  our  citizens 
have  been  addicted  ;  and  the  proposition  to  make  it  the 
corner-stone  of  the  social  fabric  should  be  carefully  con- 
sidered before  it  is  adopted.  The  occupation  of  hanging 
upon  the  skirts  of  the  government  has  not,  as  a  general 
rule,  proved  a  very  efficient  method  of  developing  high 
character.  Place-hunters  are  not,  as  a  class,  conspicuous 
for  virtue  or  for  usefulness.  And  it  may  well  be  ques- 
tioned whether  the  plan  of  employing  the  whole  population 
in  pursuits  of  this  nature  would  be  found  to  promote 
either  prosperity  or  morality. 

The  process  of  "  nationalization,"  to  which  the  advocate 
above  quoted  points  us,  is  tolerably  comprehensive. 
When  "  the  machinery  of  locomotion,  the  machiner}^  of 
communication,  the  machinery  of  production,  the  machin- 
ery of  distribution,  and  the  products  of  industry  during 
the  process  of  distribution,"  shall  have  been  "  nation- 
alized," very  little  will  be  left  for  the  individual.  Id 
what  respect  this  project  falls  short  of  "  the  abolition  of 
private  property,"  with  which  our  advocate  professes  to 
"have  no  sympathy,"  it  would  be  hard  to  say.  Possibly, 
under  this  scheme,  a  man  might  be  permitted  to  own  thft 
house  in  which  he  lived ;  but  his  farm,  his  garden,  hi^ 
tools,  his  stock  in  trade,  must  all  be  "  nationalized,"  for 
they  are  all  included  in  one  or  another  of  the  categories 
mentioned.  The  letting  of  a  house  in  which  he  did  not 
live  would  not  be  allowed  to  him :  all  houses  not  occupied 
by  their  owners  would  become  the  property  of  the  nation. 
Of  course,  no  man  would  be  permitted  to  receive  an;y 
interest  on  the  money  that  he  had  saved.     Money  saved 


Appendix,  2 1 


is  capital  in  its  simplest  form,  and  all  capital  must  be 
'-'-  nationalized."  There  is  a  theory  that  rent  is  robbery, 
and  interest  iniquity,  and  that  no  man  ought  to  be 
permitted  to  reap  any  benefit  whatever  from  liis  own 
prudence  and  self-denial.  Tliis  theory  is  getting  a  hearing 
among  the  working-men  of  this  country,  through  various 
pamphlets  and  other  publications ;  and  it  would  seem  that 
the  writer  from  whom  I  have  quoted  must  have  adopted 
it  for  substance.  It  is  only  fair  to  hnn  to  quote  at  lengtli 
from  a  courteous  letter  addressed  by  him  to  one  of  the 
daily  journals,  in  answer  to  the  positions  taken  in  the  last 
chapter  of  this  volume  :  — 

''  Tlie  new  socialism  claims  that  the  great  inventions  of 
the  present  century,  which  have  multiplied  so  many 
times  man's  power  of  production  and  locomotion,  have 
made  it  necessary  for  the  most  economical  production  and 
distribution  that  large  amounts  of  accumulated  wealtli  — 
or  capital  —  should  be  employed  in  the  methods  of  in- 
dustry ;  thus  putting  it  in  the  power  of  tliose  possessing 
such  wealth  to  obtain  the  ownership  and  control  of  more 
and  more  of  the  national  industry.  Tliat  tlie  aggregation 
of  wealth  and  power  into  the  hands  of  fewer  and  fewer 
of  the  people  increases  like  a  sum  in  compound  interest. 
'J'liat  it  makes  the  actual  producers  of  the  national  wealth 
more  and  more  dependent  upon  tlie  managers  of  their 
industry.  That  it  has  formed  a  privileged  class,  rising  to 
be  more  powerful  than  tlie  most  powerful  aristocracy  the 
world  has  ever  been  cursed  with.  That  even  in  England, 
that  stronghold  of   aristocrac}^  lords  and  dukes  have  to 


2i6      Working  People  and  theh'  Employers, 

succumb  to  tlie  merchants  and  manufacturers,  and  theii 
grand  ancestral  estates  are  changing  hands. 

"  They,  the  nobles  themselves,  are,  in  order  to  retain 
their  political  and  social  influence,  submitting  themselves 
to  what,  a  few  years  ago,  they  considered  the  degradation 
of  trade. 

"  In  short,  that  steam  has  revolutionized  the  industiy 
of  the  civilized  world. 

"  How  could  we  expect  that  any  machinery  of  govern- 
ment could  adapt  itself  without  changes,  almost,  if  not 
quite,  revolutionary  in  character,  to  the  new  order  of 
things  ? 

"  The  new  socialism  demands  that  the  changes  in  gov- 
ernment made  necessary  by  the  progress  of  industry  shall 
be  put  into  operation  with  the  least  possible  delay.  .  .  . 
If  ours  is  '  a  government  of  the  people,  hij  the  people  and 
for  the  people,'  and  if  the  most  important  function  of 
government  is  the  protection  of  its  individual  citizens, 
they  have  a  right  to  ask  that  this  enormous  power  of 
owning  and  controlling  the  capital  of  the  nation,  which  is 
tlie  accumulated  labor  of  the  nation,  and  which  directs 
and  controls  the  industry  of  the  nation,  should  be  in  tlie 
hands  of  the  nation  in  its  collective  capacity,  and  not  in 
the  hands  of  private  individuals  and  corporations  to  be 
used  for  their  own  profit  and  gain." 

Why  this  should  be  called  "  the  ne%o  socialism,"  I 
do  not  know.  It  does  not  appear  to  differ  in  any  material 
respect  from  the  socialism  of  Louis  Blanc.  All  the 
theories  here  promulgated  are  urged  witli  great  vigor  in 


Appendix.  2 1 7 


'*  The  Organization  of  Labor ;  "  and  they  were  put  hito 
partial  operation  in  the  French  Revolution  of  1848. 
They  did  not  work  very  well  in  Paris  at  that  day ;  and 
we  may  be  permitted  to  doubt  whether  they  would  be 
found  an}^  more  piacticable  in  Boston  at  this  day. 

Two  important  difficulties  are  encountered  upon  the 
threshold  of  this  project.  How,  to  begin  witli,  would  the 
government  get  possession  of  the  capital  of  the  nation? 
"  The  new  socialism  "  demands  that  the  "  revolutionary ' 
changes  in  government,  ''  made  necessary  by  the  progress 
in  industry,  shall  be  put  into  operation  with  the  least 
possible  delay."  Exactly;  but  how?  Not  to  speak  of 
the  railroads  and  the  telegraph-lines,  how  is  the  nation  to 
get  possession  of  my  rented  house,  of  my  neiglibor's  paper- 
mill,  of  the  bank-stock  and  the  mortgage-deeds  upon 
the  proceeds  of  which  another  neighbor  —  a  widow  with 
several  children  —  is  subsisting  ?  The  expectation  that 
individual  owners  will  voluntarily  give  up  to  the  gov- 
ernment the  property  they  have  saved  or  inherited,  w^ill 
scarcely  be  entertained.  This  property  must  be  taken 
from  them  by  force  ;  and  it  will  not  be  3delded  up  without 
a  bloody  struggle.  Ver}^  few  of  those  who  have  private 
possessions  of  any  value  will  be  in  favor  of  these 
^'  revolutionary  changes."  Are  the  destitute  classes  of  this 
country  numerous  enough  and  strong  enough  to  take  the 
property  of  the  country,  by  force,  from  those  who  now 
hold  it?  That  is  the  practical  question  which  confronts 
the  advocates  of  ''  the  new  socialism."  Before  entering 
upon  the  civil  war  to  which  their  theories  instantly  con- 
duct them,  it  would  be  well  for  them  to  count  tlie  cost. 


2i8       Working  People  and  their  Employ ei^s. 

But  admitting  that  all  the  capital  in  the  land  could  be 
acquired  by  "the  nation  in  its  collective  capacity,"  the 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  managing  it  would  still  be  some- 
what formidable.  The  government  now  undertakes  to  do 
a  few  things,  and  succeeds  in  doing  them  very  ill. 
Suppose  that  it  should  assume  the  control  of  all  the 
industries  of  the  nation :  is  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
all  this  vast  and  complicated  \\ork  would  be  well  done  ? 
Let  me  quote  at  some  length,  on  this  point,  from  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer's  essay  on  "  Over  Legislation,"  the  whole 
of  which  may  be  strongly  commended  to  advocates  of 
"  the  new  socialism :  "  — 

"Did  the  state  fulfil  efficiently  its  unquestionable 
duties,  there  would  be  some  excuse  for  this  eagerness  to 
assign  it  further  ones.  Were  there  no  complaints  of  its 
faulty  administration  of  justice,  of  its  endless  lelays  and 
untold  expenses,  of  its  bringing  ruin  in  place  ot  restitu- 
tion, of  its  playing  the  tyrant  where  it  should  liave  been 
the  protector;  did  we  never  hear  of  its  complicated 
stupidities ;  its  twenty  thousand  statutes  which  it  assumes 
all  Englishmen  to  know,  and  which  not  one  Englisliman 
does  know;  its  multiplied  forms  which,  in  the  effort  to 
meet  every  contingency,  open  far  more  looplioles  than 
they  provide  against ;  liad  it  not  shown  its  folly  in 
the  system  of  making  every  altei-ation  by  a  new  act,  vari- 
ously affecting  innumerable  preceding  acts ;  or  in  its 
scores  of  successive  sets  of  chancery  rules,  which  so 
modify  and  limit  and  extend  and  abolish  and  alter  one 
another,  that  not  even  vihanceiy  lawyers  know  what  tht; 


Appendix,  219 


rules  are ;  were  we  never  astounded  by  such  a  fact  as 
that,  under  the  system  of  land-registration  in  Ireland, 
six  thousand  pounds  have  been  spent  in  a  'negative 
search '  to  establish  the  title  of  an  estate ;  did  we  find  in 
its  doings  no  such  terrible  incongruity  as  the  imprison- 
ment of  a  hungry  vagrant  for  stealing  a  turnip,  wliile  for 
the  gigantic  embezzlements  of  a  railway-director  it  inflicts 
no  punishment;  had  we,  in  short,  proved  its  efficiency  as 
judge  and  defender,  instead  of  having  found  it  treach- 
erous, cruel,  and  anxiously  to  be  shunned,  —  there  would 
be  some  encouragement  to  hope  other  benefits  at  its  hands. 
"  Or  if,  while  failing  in  its  judicial  functions,  the  state 
had  proved  itself  a  capable  agent  in  some  other  depart- 
ment, —  the  military,  for  example,  —  there  would  have  been 
some  show  of  reason  for  extending  its  sphere  of  action. 
Suppose  that  it  had  rationally  equipped  its  troops,  instead 
of  giving  them  cumbrous  and  ineffective  muskets,  bar- 
barous grenadier  caps,  absurdly  heavy  knapsacks  and 
cartouche-boxes,  and  clothing  colored  so  as  admirably  to 
help  the  enemy's  workmen ;  suppose  that  it  organized 
well  and  economically,  instead  of  salarying  an  immense 
superfluity  of  officers,  creating  sinecure  colonelcies  of  four 
thousand  pounds  a  year,  neglecting  the  meritorious,  and 
promoting  incapables ;  suppose  that  its  soldiers  were 
always  well  housed,  instead  of  being  thrust  into  barracks 
that  invalid  hundreds,  as  at  Aden,  or  that  fall  on  their 
occupants,  as  at  Loodianah,  where  ninety-five  were  thus 
killed ;  suppose  that  in  actual  war  it  had  shown  due 
administrative  ability,  instead  of  occasionally  leaving  ita 
regiments  to  march  barefoot,  to  dress  in  patches,  to  cap- 


2  20       Workmg  People  and  their  Employers. 

ture  tlieir  own  engineering  tools,  and  to  fight  on  empty 
stomachs,  as  during  the  peninsular  campaign,  —  suppose 
all  this,  and  the  wish  for  more  state  control  might  still 
have  had  some  warrant. 

"  Even  though  it  had  bungled  in  every  thing  else,  yet 
had  it  in  one  case  done  well,  had  its  naval  management 
alone  been  efficient,  the  sanguine  would  have  had  a  color- 
able excuse  for  expecting  success  in  a  new  field.  Grant 
that  the  reports  about  bad  ships,  ships  that  will  not  sail, 
ships  that  have  to  be  lengthened,  ships  with  umit  engines, 
ships  that  will  not  carry  their  guns,  ships  without  stowage, 
and  ships  that  have  to  be  broken  up,  are  all  untrue,  .  .  . 
and  there  would  remain  for  the  advocates  of  much  govern- 
ment some  basis  for  their  political  air-castles,  spite  of  mili- 
tary and  judicial  mismanagement. 

"  As  it  is,  however,  they  seem  to  have  read  backward 
the  parable  of  the  talents.  Not  to  the  agent  of  proved 
efficiency  do  they  consign  further  duties,  but  to  the  negli- 
gent and  blundering  agent.  Private  enterprise  has  done 
much,  and  done  it  well.  Private  enterprise  has  cleared, 
drained,  and  fertilized  the  country,  and  built  the  towns ; 
has  excavated  mines,  laid  out  roads,  dug  canals,  and 
embanked  railways ;  has  invented  and  brought  to  perfec- 
tion ploughs,  looms,  steam-engines,  printing-presses,  and 
machines  innumerable  ;  has  built  our  ships,  our  vast  man- 
ufactoiies,  our  docks;  has  established  banks,  insurance 
societies,  and  the  newspaper  press;  has  covered  the  sea 
with  lines  of  steam  vessels,  and  the  land  with  electric 
telegraplis.  Private  enterprise  has  brought  agriculture, 
manufactures,  and  commerce   o  their  present  height,  and 


Appendix.  2  2  \ 


is  now  developing  them  with  increasing  rapidity.  There- 
fore do  not  trust  private  enterprise.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  state  so  fulfils  its  protective  function  as  to  ruin  many, 
delude  others,  and  frighten  away  those  who  most  need 
succor ;  its  national  defences  are  so  extravagantly  and  yei 
inefficiently  administered  as  to  call  forth  almost  daily 
complamt,  expostulation,  or  ridicule ;  and  as  the  nation's 
steward  it  obtains  from  some  of  our  vast  public  estates  a 
ruinous  revenue.  Therefore  trust  the  state.  Slight  the 
good  and  faithful  servant,  and  promote  the  unprofitable 
one  from  one  talent  to  ten. 

"  Seriously,  the  case,  while  it  may  not  in  some  respects 
warrant  this  parallel,  is  in  one  respect  even  stronger ; 
for  the  new  work  is  not  of  the  same  order  as  the  old,  but 
of  a  more  difficult  order.  Badly  as  government  dis- 
charges its  true  duties,  any  other  duties  committed  to  it 
are  likely  to  be  still  worse  discharged.  To  guard  its  sub- 
jects against  aggression,  either  individual  or  national,  is  a 
straightforward  and  tolerably  simple  matter ;  to  regulate, 
directly  or  indirectly,  the  personal  actions  of  those  sul)jects, 
is  an  infinitely  complicated  matter.  It  is  one  thing  to 
secure  to  each  man  the  unbounded  power  to  pursue  his 
own  good :  it  is  a  widely  different  thing  to  pursue  tlie 
good  for  him.  To  do  the  first  efficiently,  the  state  has 
merely  to  look  on  while  its  citizens  act,  to  forbid  unfair- 
ness, to  adjudicate  when  called  on,  and  to  enforce  resti- 
tution for  injuries.  To  do  the  last  efficiently,  it  must 
become  an  ubiquitous  worker,  must  know  each  man's 
needs  better  than  he  knows  them  himself ;  must,  in  short, 
possess  superhuman  power  and  intelligence.     Even,  there- 


2  22       Working  People  am   their  Employers, 


fore,  had  the  state  done  well  in  its  proper  sphere,  no 
sufficient  warrant  would  have  e  5:isted  for  extending  that 
sphere ;  but  seeing  how  ill  it  has  discharged  those  simple 
offices  which  we  cannot  help  consigning  to  it,  small  indeed 
is  the  probability  of  its  discharging  well  offices  of  a  more 
complicated  nature."  ^ 

The  charges  of  inefficiency  and  wastefulness  that  Mr. 
Spencer  brings  against  the  government  of  his  own  coun- 
try lie  equally  against  the  government  of  the  United 
States.  Neither  the  monarchy  nor  the  aristocracy  of 
Great  Britain  is  to  be  blamed  for  this  state  of  affairs ;  for 
in  republican  America  things  are  managed  just  as  badly. 
Indeed,  there  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  public 
service  of  the  mother  country  is  more  efficient  and  less 
^corrupt  than  that  of  our  own  country.  "  The  nation  in 
its  collective  capacity,"  or  incapacity,  has  proved  itself 
miserably  incompetent  to  deal  with  the  few  interests 
intrusted  to  it:  the  result  of  putting  all  "  the  machinery  " 
of  communication,  production,  and  distribution  into  its 
hands,  and  of  charging  it  with  the  care  of  all  the  wealth 
of  the  country,  may  therefore  be  easily  inferred. 

Consider  what  this  involves.  All  the  houses  not  occu- 
pied by  their  owners  must  pass  into  the  control  of  the 
government.  The  government  could  not  rent  them,  for 
rent  is  robbery  :  they  must  therefore  be  distributed  among 
those  who  own  no  houses.  On  what  principle  should  this 
allotment  be  made  ?  All  the  railroads  and  telegraph-lines 
in  the  country  would  belong  to  the  government ;  all  the 
1  "Essays,  Moral,  Political,  and  -<Esthetic,"  pp.  51-55. 


Appendix.  223 


mills  and  factories  and  ships  would  be  owned  and  operated 
by  the  government ;  and  if  1  rightly  understand  "  the 
new  socialism,"  all  the  mercantile  business  of  the  country 
would  be  transacted  by  the  government.  Saying  nothing 
about  the  difficulty  of  managing  all  these  vast  affairs  by  a 
political  agency,  and  admitting  that  they  could  be  tliuf 
managed  in  such  a  way  as  to  pay  expenses  and  .eave  some 
surplus  for  distribution,  on  what  principle  should  this 
distribution  be  made  ?  "  On  principles  of  justice,"  our 
socialistic  friends  promptly  reply.  "  The  present  distribu- 
tion of  the  proceeds  of  industry  is  glaringly  unequal :  we 
insist  that  they  shall  be  divided  equitably."  But  here 
they  are  not  agreed.  Three  principal  methods  are  formu- 
lated by  Prof.  Cairnes,  as  finding  favor  with  socialistic 
reformers :  "  To  each  according  to  his  wants,"  "  To 
each  according  to  his  works,"  and,  "  To  each  according  to 
his  sacrifices."  Let  us  hear  his  analysis  of  these 
methods :  - — 

"  As  regards  the  first  of  the  formulas  to  which  I  have 
referred,  which  proposes  to  distribute  the  wealth  of  a 
community  among  its  members  in  proportion  to  their 
wants,  I  must  frankly  acknowledge  that  I  am  wholly 
unable  even  to  conjecture  the  method  of  its  application. 
How  are  the  wants  of  individuals  to  be  ascertained  ?  Is 
it  to  be  left  to  each  to  describe  his  own  wants  ?  And  if 
the  funds  are  not  enough  to  meet  the  requirements  of  all, 
who  is  to  decide  which  is  the  most  urgent  ?  A  man  with 
a  large  family  has  greater  wants  than  a  man  with  a  small 
one.     Does   this   constitute    a  title  to    a  proportionately 


4       Wo r king  People  a7td  their  Employers. 


larger  sh.ire  of  the  proceeds  of  industry?  And,  if  so,  what 
is  to  keep  the  population  of  a  country  within  the  necessary 
limit  of  the  means  of  subsistence  ?  Such  are  some  of  the 
questions  which  meet  us  on  the  threshold  in  seeking  to 
apply  this  formula,  every  one  of  which  leads  us  straight 
into  a  cul  de  sac.  I  must  therefore  put  aside  this  par- 
ticular form  of  the  law  of  distribution,  as  for  me  utterly 
unmanageable.  The  two  latter  principles,  however,  of 
which  one  would  assign  wealth  to  each  person  in  propor- 
tion to  the  work  he  has  accomplished,  and  another  in 
proportion  to  the  sacrifice  he  has  undergone,  are  not  at 
once  and  obviously  impracticable  ;  and  in  point  of  fact, 
both  one  and  the  other  do  exert,  under  our  existing  system 
of  industry,  a  certain  influence  in  determining  the  distri- 
bution of  wealth.  For  example  :  wherever  the  results  of 
industry  admit  of  being  measured  and  compared,  as  in  all 
work  of  the  same  kind,  the  remuneration  of  the  workman, 
if  any  competition  is  effective,  naturally  adjusts  itself  to 
the  results  of  his  work.  A  workman  who  in  a  given  time 
can  produce  twice  as  much  work  as  another  will  in  an 
open  market  command  twice  as  much  wages.  But  where 
the  results  of  industr}^  are  different  in  kind,  how  is  the 
ule  of  distribution  in  proportion  to  the  results  to  be 
applied  ?  One  man  in  a  day  produces  a  coat,  another  a 
table,  a  third  superintends  a  body  of  woikmen  :  by  what 
result  shall  we  measure  these  several  results,  and  say  that 
ctny  of  them  is  greater  or  less  than  any  other  ?  It  is  plain 
that  the  rule  of  distribution  in  proportion  to  results  fails 
us  utterly  here.  Similarly,  the  principle  of  distribution 
in  proportion  to  sacrifice  has  also,  under  our  present  rujinie^ 


Appendix.  225 


a  certain  operation  in  cletermiLjig  the  d'striljution  of 
wealth.  But  the  field  of  competition,  though  large,  is  far 
from  being  co-extensive  with  the  industry  of  any  country; 
and  in  the  absence  of  competition  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how 
j-elative  sacrifice  is  to  be  determined."  * 

If,  therefore,  the  industry  of  the  country  thus  "  nation- 
alized "  resulted  in  any  increase  of  the  national  wealth,  the 
problem  of  its  distribution  would  be  an  extremely  difficult 
one.  Our  friends  the  revolutionists  ought  to  have  this 
[)art  of  their  programme  well  thought  out  before  they 
organize  their  forces  for  the  seizure  of  the  property  of 
their  neighbors. 

It  is  only  fair  to  admit,  however,  that  there  would  be 
no  surplus  to  divide.  Putting  the  management  of  all 
industries  into  the  hands  of  a  national  bureaucracy,  and 
excluding  from  the  minds  of  those  who  organize  labor,  as 
well  as  of  those  who  perform  it,  the  motive  of  self-interest, 
the  work  would  be  so  poorly  managed  and  so  badly  done 
that  no  gains  would  be  reported  at  the  end  of  the  year. 
Under  the  lead  of  M.  Louis  Blanc  and  other  socialists,  the 
French  republican  government,  in  the  days  of  '48,  organ- 
ized several  government  workshops,  in  which  a  large 
number  of  men  were  employed.  These  workmen  must 
have  a  certain  daily  stipend  on  which  to  subsist ;  and  with 
great  prudence  the  government  determined  to  give  them 
the  same  wages  that  they  had  received  under  the  mon 
archy,  promising  to  divide  the  surplus  among  them.  But 
\^hen  the  reckoning  day  came,  tliese  shops  were  found  to 

i  "Political  Economy,"  pp.  266,  267. 


2  26       Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

have  made  losses  rather  than  profits.  This  failure  was 
owing  quite  as  much  to  the  indolence  and  irregularity  of 
the  workmen  as  to  the  inefficiency  of  the  management. 
The  same  result  must  follow  under  any  system  that  un- 
dertnkes  to  release  the  workman  from  the  consequences 
of  his  own  idleness  and  improvidence,  and  to  put  him  by 
force  of  law  into  a  position  which  he  has  fai]ed  to  gain  bj 
his  own  exertions. 

Nothing  is  surer,  therefore,  than  that  the  capital  of  the 
country  thus  "  nationalized "  would  rapidly  disappear. 
This  capital  would  never  have  been  accumulated  had  it 
not  been  for  the  hope  entertained  by  those  who  now  pos- 
sess it,  of  keeping  it,  and  enjoying  the  fruits  of  it.  It 
cannot  be  preserved,  much  less  increased,  by  the  operation 
of  any  feebler  motive.  On  this  subject,  hear  Prof.  Cairnes 
again  :  — 

'*  I  take  it  to  be  a  fundamental  and  indispensable  condi- 
tion of  all  progressive  human  society,  that  by  some  means 
or  other  a  large  aggregate  capital  available  for  its  require- 
ments should  be  provided.  Without  such  a  fund,  accu- 
mulated from  the  products  of  past  toil,  division  of  labor 
and  continuous  industry  are  impossible  ;  population  can- 
not attain  the  degree  of  density  indispensable  to  civilized 
existence;  nor  can  that  amount  of  leisure  from  physical 
toil  be  secured  for  any  considerable  portion  of  tlie  people, 
whicli  is  required  for  the  cultivation  of  science  and  litera- 
ture. The  maintenance,  therefore,  of  an  aggregate  capital 
capable  of  providing  for  these  requirements,  must  be 
regarded  as  an  indispensable  condition  to  be  fulfilled  by 


Appendix,  227 


every  industrial  system  whicli  undertakes  to  promote  the 
well-being  and  progress  of  mankind.  Now,  our  economic 
investigations  have  shown  us  that  this  end  —  the  storing- 
up  of  the  products  of  past  industry  for  the  purpose  of 
sustaining  and  assisting  present  industry  —  can  only  be 
att-'iined  at  the  cost  of  certain  sacrifices  ;  those  sacrifices, 
namely,  implied  in  foregoing  the  immediate  use  of  what 
people  have  the  power  of  using,  and  in  incurring  the 
risk  which  attaches  in  a  greater  or  less  degree  to  all  in- 
dustrial investment.  These  sacrifices  may  be  regarded  as 
trivial  or  severe  ;  but  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  will  not 
be  undergone  without  an  adequate  motive  in  the  form  of 
a  compensating  reward.  Such  a  motive  our  present  sys- 
tem of  industry  provides  in  the  maintenance  of  private 
property  and  industrial  freedom.  The  prospect  of  profit 
is  the  prospect  of  enjoying  as  property  the  results  of 
industrial  investment ;  and  this  prospect,  under  a  system 
of  industrial  freedom,  is  thrown  open  to  all  who  are 
in  the  possession  of  wealth.  The  inducement  thus  offered 
to  the  acquisitive  propensity  in  man  constitutes,  under 
the  actual  system  of  things,  tlie  ultimate  security  for  all 
the  results  which  go  to  form  our  industrial  civilization. 
The  feeling  appealed  to  may,  if  you  like,  be  a  coarse 
ono  ;  but  it  is  at  any  rate  efficacious ;  it  does  lead  to 
!»abitual  and  systematic  saving,  and  furnishes  society 
with  the  necessary  material  basis  for  civilized  progress. 
lUit  tliis  motive,  every  system  which  annuls  private 
property  and  freedom  of  individual  industry  takes  awuy  ; 
and  the  question  is.  What  do  such  systems  supply  in  its 
place?     Two  possible  substitutes,  so  far  as  1  know,  and 


2  28       Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

two  only,  have  been  or  can  be  suggested,  —  benevolence 
and  public  spirit.  I  should  be  very  unwilling  to  dis- 
parage such  principles  of  action,  or  to  deny  that  they 
are  at  present  extremely  influential  in  public  affairs;  but 
I  cannot  affect  to  believe  that  either  or  that  both  together 
—  taking  human  beings  not  as  in  the  progress  of  human 
improvement  they  may  possibly  become,  but  as  we  now 
actually  find  them  —  could  be  trusted  to  supply  the  place 
of  that  desire  for  individual  advancement  and  well-being 
to  which  the  institutions  of  private  property  and  industrial 
freedom  make  appeal.  I  am  therefore  unable  to  see  how 
any  system  which  relies  upon  no  stronger  or  more  univer- 
sal elements  of  human  character  than  these  for  its  support 
can  fulfil  that  primary  and  indispensable  condition  of  all 
human  society,  —  the  providing  of  a  material  basis  for 
civilization  in  the  form  of  an  accumulated  capital."  ^ 

This  capital  which  our  friends  propose  to  "  nationalize  " 
exists,  in  fact,  by  virtue  of  a  principle  in  human  nature 
which  they  propose  to  exterminate  or  repress.  I  admit, 
with  Mr.  Cairnes,  that  the  principle  is  not  the  highest 
upon  which  human  beings  can  act ;  but  it  is  the  motive 
power  of  our  material  civilization,  and  any  system  that 
undertakes  to  dispense  with  it  will  make  small  headway. 
In  the  millennium,  no  doubt,  disinterested  benevolence  will 
load  all  the  people  to  labor  hard,  and  live  sparingly,  in 
order  thai  their  neighbors  may  be  enriched ;  but  in  these 
days  ver}  few  men  have  reached  this  height  of  virtue, 
and  the  great  majority  will  neither  be  diligent  nor  prudent 
1  "  Political  Economy,"  pp.  271-3. 


Appendix,  229 

unless  you  show  them  plainly  that  they  can  liave  what 
they  earn,  and  keep  what  they  save  ;  that  they  are  at 
liberty  to  use  their  accumulated  wealth  productively  in 
any  legitimate  industry ;  that  they  may  exchange  it  with 
their  neighbors  for  services,  as  well  as  for  products ;  that 
they  may  lend  it  for  a  lawful  or  a  stipulated  remunera- 
tion ;  and  that  they  may  give  it,  when  they  want  it  no 
longer,  to  whom  they  will. 

Doubtless  the  possession  of  capital  by  their  neighbors 
does  seem  to  some  persons  a  grievous  inequality.  But 
this  capital  represents  somebody's  savings  ;  and  if  persons 
choose  to  save  their  money,  instead  of  spending  it,  they  are 
entitled  to  some  reward  for  their  abstinence.  Here  are 
two  workmen,  each  of  whom  earns  eight  hundred  dollars 
a  year.  One  of  them  spends  every  cent  of  his  earnings : 
the  other  denies  himself  many  luxuries,  and  lays  by  three 
hundred  dollars  every  year.  Is  it  not  right  that  the  man 
who  has  saved  the  money  should  be  permitted  to  use  it 
productively  ;  to  purchase,  for  example,  a  little  plot  of 
ground  on  wliich  he  may  raise  vegetables  for  the  use  of 
his  family  ?  Would  it  not  be  right  even  for  him  to  loan 
his  three  hundred  dollars  to  another  neighbor  at  a  fair 
rate  of  interest?  He  not  only  foregoes  the  use  of  the 
money  himself,  but  he  incurs  a  certain  risk  in  letting  it 
pass  into  the  hands  of  another.  Is  it  not  fair  that  he 
should  receive  some  reward  for  both  these  sacrifices  ? 

Yet  "  the  new  socialism  ''  in  demanding  "  the  nationali- 
zation of  capital"  forbids  this  thrifty  working-man  to 
reap  any  advantage  from  his  own  prudence  and  self-denial, 
and  insists  tliat  he  shall  citlier   hand  over  his   three  hun- 


230       Working  People  and  their  Employers, 


dred  dollars  every  year  to  tlie  government,  or  else  that  he 
shall  tie  it  up  in  a  napkin  or  an  old  stocking,  as  the  case 
may  be,  and  hide  it  from  tie  sight  of  men.  A  system 
which  thus  proscribes  individual  thrift,  and  ordains  that 
the  man  who  saves  a  part  of  his  earnings  shall  be  no 
better  off  than  the  man  who  consumes  them  all,  will  not, 
I  think,  commend  itself  to  (he  favor  of  intelligent  Ameii- 
can  workmen. 


B. 


To  prove  that  socialism  is  not  feasible,  is  not  to  con- 
clude tliat  the  condition  of  the  laboring-classes  under  the 
present  regime  is  what  it  ouglit  to  be.  The  wages-system 
may  be  better,  as  men  now  are,  than  "  the  nationalization 
of  capital ; "  but  under  tlie  wages-system,  the  hardships 
of  the  working-man  are  many,  and  liis  outlook  is  by  no 
means  cheering.  When,  therefoi'C,  the  advocate  of  ''  the 
new  socialism,"  to  whom  I  liave  referred  in  the  preced- 
ing pages,  replies  to  my  criticism  of  the  socialistic  methods 
by  asking  "  how  far  the  present  method  of  administration 
redounds  to  the  equal  benefit  of  the  people,  or  to  an 
equitable  distribution  "  of  the  wealth  of  the  counhy,  I 
answer  frankly.  Not  to  any  very  satisfactory  extent. 
That  the  working-people  would,  very  shortly,  be  worse 
oif  under  a  socialistic  order  than  they  are  at  present,  1 
have  no  doubt ;  but  this  is  nc'  to  oay  that  they  are  well 
enough  off  at  present.  Thai  Injustice  and  inequality  bear 
heavy  rule  in  their  affairs,  is  altogether  too  plain.  As 
Prof.  Cairnes  has  written,  ^'  When  I  look  into  the 
nature  of  those  economic  forces,  on  the  play  of  which  the 

231 


232       Working  People  mzd  their  Employers 

actual  distribution  of  wealth  in  this  and  other  countries 
depends,  what  do  I  find  ?  Certain  physical,  physiological, 
and  mental  conditions:  on  the  one  hand,  a  productive 
capacity  in  the  soil,  and  other  natural  agents ;  on  tlie 
other,  certain  elements  in  the  character  of  the  people, 
such  as  the  desire  to  accumulate  wealth  and  provide  for 
the  future,  and,  constantly  counteracting  this,  a  love  of 
present  ease  and  indulgence ;  lastly,  the  animal  propensi- 
ties, whicli  continue  and  multiply  the  race.  These  are 
the  forces  which,  coming  into  play  under  a  regime  of 
private  property  and  freedom  of  industrial  enterprise, 
determine  the  proportions  in  which  wealth  is  divided 
among  a  people.  But  what  is  there  in  such  circumstances, 
to  make  it  necessary  that  the  distribution  which  results 
shall  be  in  conformity  with  what  our  ideas  of  justice 
would  require  ?  What  is  there  in  the  case,  to  secure  that 
the  action  shall  always  be  in  the  lines  of  moral  right? 
The  agencies  in  operation  are  essentially  out  of  the  moral 
sphere ;  and  if  it  should,  in  fact,  happen  that  the  results 
arising  from  their  free  action  in  any  given  case  ]3rove  to 
be  in  strict  accordance  with  the  claims  of  moral  justice, 
and  with  so-called  '  natural  rights,'  I  do  not  see  that  we 
should  be  justified  in  regarding  the  coincidence  as  other 
ll  an  a  fortunate  accident.  In  point  of  fact,  the  practical 
consequences  arising  from  the  conditions  of  industry  in 
this  and  other  civih'zed  countries  are  not  such  as,  for  my 
part,  I  should  find  it  easy  to  reconcile  with  any  standard 
of  right  generally  accepted  among  men." 

It  must  be  owned  that  equity  does  not  rule  to  any  great 
extent  in  any  of  the   relations  of  human  beings.     How 


Appendix.  233 


many  households  are  there,  in  which  the  members  all  deal 
with  one  another  justly?  How  many  social  organizations 
are  there,  in  which  impartial  justice  governs  all  the 
members  in  their  treatment  of  one  another?  CU  wliat 
men  sometimes  call  benevolence,  there  is  rather  more  in 
(he  world  than  of  what  is  rightly  called  justice.  An  easy 
good-nature,  a  sentimental  tenderness,  are  not  so  rare  as 
a  willingness  to  respect  the  rights  of  others,  —  tlieir  rights 
of  liberty,  of  property,  and  of  reputation.  More  people  are 
willing  to  do  me  favors  than  are  willing  to  recognize  my 
rights.  Not  only  in  the  distribution  of  wealth,  but  in  all 
the  other  affairs  of  human  life,  great  injustice  prevails. 
Men  are  not  just :  the  great  majority  of  them  are 
governed  in  their  conduct,  not  by  the  principles  of  equity, 
but  by  their  selfish  interests  and  passions ;  and  hence 
these  inequalities  and  hardships  which  we  all  deplore. 
But  these  traits  of  human  nature  will  not  be  eradicated 
by  a  new  social  organization.  Give  ''  the  nation  in  its 
collective  capacity"  all  "the  machinery"  in  the  world, 
and  it  will  not  be  able  to  make  a  single  citizen  any  less 
extortionate,  or  any  more  honorable. 

Under  no  system  of  industry,  therefore,  is  it  reasonable 
to  expect  that  the  wealth  of  the  nation  will  be  equitabl}'- 
distributed,  until  a  vast  improvement  shall  have  been 
wrought  in  the  moral  condition  of  the  people;  and  im- 
provements of  this  nature  are  wrought  slowly,  and  not 
by  political  agencies. 

The  evils  to  which  the  system  of  private  property  and 
industrial  freedom  give  rise  iire  great;  l)ut  greater 
evils    would    result    from    its    destruction.     As    human 


2  34       Working  People  and  their  Employers, 

nature  now  is,  the  motives  to  which  this  system  makes 
appeal  are  the  only  adequate  motives  to  industry  and 
prudence.  No  form  of  industrial  organization  will  deliver 
the  working-man  from  all  the  evils  of  his  condition :  but 
some  forms  are  better  than  others  ;  and  every  wise  scheme 
for  the  improvement  of  his  lot  will  secure  him  in  the  un- 
disturbed possession  of  his  own  gains,  and  in  the  free  use 
of  lliem.  To  be  a  mere  laborer,  is  to  live  in  a  dependent 
condition.  He  ought  to  have  the  opportunity  to  save  his 
earnings,  and  to  combine  the  profits  realized,  from  the 
capital  thus  saved,  with  the  wages  of  his  labor.  A  system 
of  industry  which  identifies  the  laborer  and  the  capitalist, 
which  gives  the  workman  an  immediate  interest  in  the 
success  of  the  work  in  which  he  is  engaged,  and  which 
secures  to  him  not  only  the  results  of  \\\&  own  labor,  but 
also  the  returns  of  the  capital  invested,  would  seem  to 
enlist  all  those  principles  of  human  nature  that  have 
given  vigor  to  our  industrial  enterprises,  while  it  removes, 
at  least  in  part,  those  occasions  of  conflict  by  which  the 
progress  of  industry  is  so  often  impeded. 

I  desire  now  to  give,  a  little  more  fully  than  I  was  able 
to  do  in  the  foregoing  chapters,  the  arguments  and  con- 
clusions of  some  of  the  most  eminent  writers  of  recent 
times,  in  support  of  the  system  of  co-operation.  The 
authorities  that  I  shall  cite  are  within  the  reach  of  most 
working-men  ;  but  some  of  those  who  read  these  pages 
may  find  my  quotations  serviceable.  First,  let  me  refer 
again  to  Prof.  Cairnes,  whose  clear  and  comprehensive 
exposition  of  the  whole  subject  deserves  the  most  careful 
attention  of  both  working-peojile  and  their  employer?^ : — 


Appendix.  235 


"  It  appears  to  me,  that  the  condition  of  any  substan- 
iiil  improvement  of  a  permanent  kind  in  the  laborer's  lot 
is.  that  the  separation  of  industrial  classes  into  LLl)orers 
and  capitalists  shall  not  be  maintained  ;  and  the  lal)orer 
shall  cease  to  be  a  mere  laborer,  —  in  a  word,  tliat  jirofits 
shall  be  brought  to  re-enforce  the  wages-fund.  .  .  .  Un- 
equal as  is  the  distribution  of  wealth  already  in  this 
country,  the  tendency  of  industrial  progress  —  on  the 
supposition  that  the  present  separation  between  industrial 
classes  is  maintained  —  is  towards  an  inequality  greater 
still.  The  rich  will  be  growing  richer,  and  the  poor  at 
least  relatively  poorer.  It  seems  to  me,  apart  altogether 
from  the  question  of  the  laborer's  interest,  that  these  are 
not  conditions  which  furnish  a  solid  basis  for  a  progress- 
ive social  state  ;  but,  having  regard  to  that  interest,  I 
think  the  considerations  adduced  show  that  the  first  and 
indispensable  step  toward  any  serious  amendment  of  the 
laborer's  lot  is,  that  he  should  be,  in  one  way  or  other, 
lifted  out  of  the  groove  in  jvhich  he  at  present  works,  and 
placed  in  a  position  compatible  with  his  becoming  a  sliarer, 
in  equa!  proportion  with  others,  in  the  general  advantages 
arising  from  industrial  progress"  (pp.  284,  285). 

"  The  all-important  point,  as  it  seems  to  me,  is  to  rec- 
ognize the  direction  in  which  the  emancipation  of  labor 
from  what  is  called  (absurdly  enough)  the  tyranny  of 
capital  lies.  This,  I  repeat,  is,  and,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  only 
can  be,  that  of  co-operative  industry.  It  is,  of  course, 
open  to  any  one  to  question  the  feasibility  of  the  plan  ;  to 
such  doubts,  the  only  effective  answer,  and  it  has  already 
to  some  extent  been  given,  will  be  actual  performance . 


236       Workijig  People  and  their  Employers. 

but  what  I  tliink  the  foregoing  argument  establishes  is, 
that  the  alternative  lies  between  this  plan  and  none.  If 
workmen  do  not  rise  from  dependence  upon  capital,  by 
the  path  of  co-operation,  then  they  must  remain  in  depen- 
dence upon  capital.  The  margin  for  the  possible  improve- 
ment of  their  lot  is  confined  within  narrow  barriers,  which 
cannot  be  passed;  and  the  problem  of  their  elevation  is 
hopeless.  As  a  body,  they  will  not  rise  at  all.  A  few, 
more  energetic  or  more  fortunate  than  the  rest,  will  from 
time  to  time  escape,  as  they  do  now,  from  the  ranks  of 
their  fellows,  to  the  higher  ranks  of  industrial  life ;  but 
the  great  majority  will  remain  substantially  where  they 
are.  The  remuneration  of  labor,  skilled  or  unskilled,  can 
never  rise  much  above  its  present  level"  (p.  291). 

"  Co-operation,  while  it  appeals  in  the  strongest  way  to 
those  attributes  of  character  which  are  concerned  in  the 
control  of  population,  makes  comparatively  definite  and 
clear  the  limits  of  the  laborer's  resources.  He  is  now  a 
payer  as  well  as  a  receiver  of  wages,  and,  seeing  the  wages- 
problem  from  both  sides,  is  likely  to  acquire  juster  views , 
but  even  though  wages  should  still  remain  a  mystery,  at 
least  it  will  be  tolerably  clear  that  profits  will  grow  witJi 
the  growth  of  capital,  and  that  each  man  may  cour.t  on 
receiving  them  precisely  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of 
capital  he  can  command.  Supposing  a  workman  to  have 
achieved  comfortable  independence,  it  will  be  clear  to  him, 
that,  to  maintain  it,  he  must  maintaii.  his  capital  unim- 
paired ;  and  that  to  incur  responsibilities  which  should 
compel  him  to  encroach  upon  his  capital  to  meet  current 
expenses,  would  be  tantamount  to  a  deliberate  descent  in 


Appendix,  237 


the  scale  of  well-being.  The  position  of  the  co-opei"ator 
would  in  this  respect  be  analogous  to  that  of  the  j)resent 
proprietoi",  who,  like  him,  draws  his  subsistence  from  a 
tolerably  definite  fund,  and  generally  contrives  to  keep  the 
expenses  of  his  household  within  the  limits  which  that 
fund  will  support.  In  these  circumstances,  it  seems  to 
me,  there  is  good  ground  for  hopefulness.  Co-operation 
at  once  renders  less  formidable  the  obstacles  to  human 
improvement  inevitably  incident  to  our  animal  propen- 
sities, and  tends  to  develop,  in  those  who  take  part  in  it, 
a  type  of  character  fitted  in  a  high  degree  for  encounter- 
ing them  with  success"  (pp.  293,  294). 

Prof.  Fawcett,  in  his  "  Manual  of  Political  Economy," 
p.  279,  says  of  this  method  of  industry,  "  Any  one  who 
considers  what  it  has  already  effected,  and  what  it  is 
capable  of  doing  in  the  future,  must,  we  think,  come  to 
the  conclusion  that  we  may  look  with  more  confidence  to 
co-operation  than  to  any  other  economic  agency  to  improve 
the  industrial  condition  of  the  country." 

Lord  Derby's  opinions  are  cited  on  p.  208.  Let  me 
quote  a  little  more  fully,  from  Mr.  Thomas  Brassey's 
"  Work  and  Wages,"  p.  259,  the  words  of  the  noble  lord : 
'•  It  IS  human  nature  that  a  man  should  like  to  feel  that 
he  is  to  be  the  gainer  by  any  extra  industry  that  he  may 
put  forth  ;  that  he  would  like  to  have  some  sense  of  pro- 
prietorship in  a  shop  or  a  mill,  or  whatever  it  may  be,  in 
which  he  spends  his  days  ;  and  it  is  because  the  system, 
introduced  of  late  years,  of  co-operative  industry,  meets 
this  natural  wish,  that  I  look  forward  to  its  extension 
with  so  much  hopefulness.     I  believe  it  is  the  best  and 


238       Working  People  and  their  Employers. 

surest  remedy  for  that  antagonism  of  labor  and  capital 
which  we  hear  so  much  talk  of,  and  which  to  a  certain 
extent  no  doubt  exists.  ...  I  am  well  aware  that  such  a 
state  of  things  as  I  have  pointed  out  cannot  be  brought 
abou"^  in  a  day.  It  is  quite  probable  that  there  are  some 
trades  and  some  kinds  of  business  in  which  it  cannot  be 
brought  about  at  all ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  it  is  in  this 
direction  that  the  efforts  of  the  best  workers  and  the 
ideas  of  the  best  thinkers  are  tending :  and  we  are  not  to 
be  disappointed  because  we  do  not  hit  at  once  upon  the 
best  way  of  doing  what  has  never  been  done  before." 

Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill,  in  his  chapter  on  "  The  Probable 
Future  of  the  Laboring-Classes,"  gives  an  excellent  ac- 
count of  what  had  been  accomplished  in  this  direction  at 
the  time  of  his  writing,  reaching  this  conclusion  :  "  If 
the  improvement  which  even  triumphant  military  despot- 
ism has  only  retarded,  not  stopped,  shall  continue  its 
course,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  status  of  hired 
laborers  will  gradually  tend  to  confine  itself  to  the  de- 
scription of  work-people  whose  low  moral  qualities  ren- 
der them  unfit  for  any  thing  more  independent ;  and  that 
the  relation  of  masters  and  work-people  will  be  graduall} 
superseded  by  partnership  in  one  of  two  forms,  —  in  some 
cases,  association  of  the  laborers  with  the  capitalist ;  in 
others,  and  perhaps  finally  in  all,  association  of  laborers 
amoniT  themselves."  ^ 

o 

The  fact  adverted  to  by  Mr.  Mill,  that  co-operation 
demands  of  those  who  enter  upon  it  some  degree  of  intel- 

i  'Triuciples  of  Political  Economy,"  People's  Edition,  p.  461. 


Appendix.  239 


ligence  and  moral  development,  is  insisted  upon  by  Prof. 
Cairnes  and  by  all  tbe  writers  who  favor  the  method. 

Mr.  Brassey,  an  experienced  contractor  and  a  careful 
student  of  the  labor  question,  in  an  article  in  ''  The 
Contemporary  Review  "  of  July,  1874,  makes  one  or  two 
[)ractical  suggestions  to  which  intending  co-operators  will 
do  well  to  take  heed  :  "  It  is  because  there  has  been  in 
co-operative  establishments  a  reluctance  to  pay  what  is 
necessary  to  enlist  first-rate  ability  in  the  management  of 
the  business,  that  their  operations  have  been  attended 
hitherto  with  very  partial  success.  Only  personal  experi- 
ence of  the  difficulties  of  the  task  would  induce  a  body 
of  Avorkmen  to  reserve  from  their  earnings  a  sum  sufficient 
to  secure  the  services  of  competent  leaders.  We  would 
therefore  earnestly  advise  those  interested  in  co-operative 
production  to  discourage  attempts  to  commence  on  a  large 
scale  a  business  difficult  to  manage.  A  moderate  capital 
is  easily  obtained.  Large  funds  are  not  rapidly  procured. 
When  only  a  fcAV  hands  are  engaged,  the  government 
may  be  conducted  on  a  purely  democratic  basis.  Where 
the  energies  of  a  multitude  are  combined,  there  must  be 
an  enlightened  despotism.  .  .  .  When  the  business  is  of 
a  kind  that  cannot  be  carried  out  advantageously  on  a 
moderate  footing,  the  co-operative  principle  should  be 
applied  to  the  execution  of  sub-contracts  for  portions  of 
the  work,  to  the  supply  of  a  part  of  a  large  order,  or  to 
the  execution  of  a  single  process  in  a  complicated  manu- 
facture." 

The  question  of  procuring  the  capital  for  these  indus- 
trial operations  is  referred   to   by  Mr.  Brassey ;   and  it  i:j 


240       Working  People  and  their  Employers 


just  liere  that  the  socialistic  theorists  demand  help  from 
the  government.  The  newspaper  critic  to  whose  obser- 
vations attention  has  been  given  in  this  Appendix  declares 
that  the  author  of  this  volume  "  makes  .1  terrible  mistake 
in  supposing  that  any  material  improvement  will  take 
place  in  the  condition  of  the  working-classes  through 
their  becoming  capitalists  by  means  of  their  own  savings." 
I  can  only  turn  the  point  of  this  sentence,  and  say  that  a 
terrible  mistake  is  made  by  any  man  who  supposes  that 
their  physical  condition  can  be  improved  in  any  other 
way.  Practically,  capital  can  be  obtained  by  those  who 
do  not  inlierit  it,  in  only  two  ways :  by  saving  their  earn- 
ings, and  by  robbery.  That  it  is  a  terrible  mistake  to 
steal,  even  when  it  is  done  under  the  forms  of  law,  I  am 
very  sure.  But  the  difficulty  of  honestly  acquiring  capi- 
tal, on  the  part  of  working-men,  is  by  no  means  so  great  as 
some  of  their  counsellors  would  make  them  believe.  Let 
us  hear  one  more  wise  word  on  this  point  from  Prof. 
Cairues :  ''  If,  then,  the  laborer  is  to  emerge  from  his 
present  position,  and  become  a  sharer  in  the  gains  of 
capital,  he  must  in  the  first  instance  learn  to  save.  To 
make  saving  practicable,  it  is  true,  there  must  be  a  margin 
of  income  beyond  what  is  required  for  providing  the 
necessaries  of  life ;  and  I  shall  perhaps  be  told  that  this 
margin  the  laborer  does  not  possess.  But  this  is  an  asser- 
tion which  cannot  for  a  moment  be  maintained  in  the  face 
of  the  evidence  furnished  by  the  excise  returns.  From 
these  returns  it  has  been  calculated  that  a  sum  of  no  less 
than  one  hundred  and  twenty  million  pounds  sterling  is 
now  spent  annually   on   alcoholic   drinks.       [It   will   be 


Appendix.  241 


remembered  that  the  report  of  the  Bureau  of  Statistics, 
as  quoted  on  one  of  the  foregoing  pages,  gives  about  the 
same  amount,  six  hundred  million  dollars,  as  the  sum  ex- 
pended for  the  same  purpose  in  the  United  States.]  In 
what  proportion  the  working-classes  take  part  in  this 
expenditure,  we  have  no  means  of  accurately  determining  ; 
but  I  imagine  it  will  not  be  disputed,  that  by  much  the 
larger  proportion  must  be  set  down  to  their  account ;  and 
I  am  certainly  within  the  mark  in  assuming,  that  of  the 
money  so  spent,  I  am  sure  I  might  say  three-fourths  of 
the  whole,  so  far  from  conducing  in  any  way  to  the  well- 
being  of  those  who  spend  it,  is  both  physically  and  morally 
injurious  to  them.  Here,  then,  is  a  sum  of,  let  us  say, 
sixty  million  pounds  sterling,  which  might  annually  be 
saved  without  trenching  upon  any  expenditure  which 
really  contributes  to  the  laborer's  well-being.  The  obsta- 
cles to  this  saving  are  not  physical  but  moral  obstacles , 
and  supposing  laborers  had  the  virtue  to  overcome  them, 
the  first  step  toward  what  might  be  called  their  industrial 
emancipation  would  already  have  been  accomplished '' 
(pp.  287,  288). 

16 


OF  THE     ^ 


i-^''  14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


mi  7  ^^'^•^8  0 


tl  ^  C-  ir .  n  V  I-r.,  U 


TT-TZTT 


•f^T- 


vAM 


UOAhl  MAsi^n 


MAR  4     1976  1  1» 


^ec.  tillt,  'VftSi  ^0. 


IM 


142k 


3|2i 


OCT  2  8  2005 


LD21A-60m-2,'67 
(H241slO)476B 


General  Library 
University  of  California 

Berkeley 


VJIU1 


f 


o.c.B..«^^''^!!S' 


iiil! 


i 


COOBS"? 


OSO'^ 


^'^.    ^^^^i^'^'lM 


^1 


'^h 


i\v^ 


